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A MAN. 



BY 

Rev. Ji D. bell. 



**In understanding, be men." 

St. Paul. 

"Not only to keep down the base in man, 
But teach high thought, and amiable words, 
And courtliness, and the desire of fame. 
And love of truth, and all that makes a man." 

Tennyson, 



PHILADELPHIA: 
JAMES CHALLEN & SON. 
1860. 



^'V 



51I 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1860, by 

JAMES CHALLEN & SON, 

in the Clerk's Ofllce of the District Court of the United States for the Eastern 

District of Pennsylvania. 

STEREOTYPED BY J. FAGAN PRINTED BY I. ASHMEAD. 



Rev. D. W. Clark, D.D. 

My Dear Sir: 
Some years ago, I learned your urbanity as a 
literary acquaintance. Since that time^ it would 
be strange, if, in a friendly and harmonious rela- 
tion, in which my regard for you has become 
stronger and stronger, you should not have in- 
fluenced me much more than you would suppose. 
Believe me, sir, when I say, that one of your 
numerous friends is fain to acknowledge that he 
has been deeply impressed by your uniform mag- 
nanimity, and that one sincere lover of literature 
has traced in you a balance of mind, which he 
deems worthy to be admired and imitated by 

many. 

(iii) 



iv Dedication. 

I do not know any person of honorable dis- 
tinction, under whose sheltering name I could 
more willingly commit a book which I have pro- 
duced apart from " the unprofitable stir and fever 
of the world/' and which contains the results of 
several patient years of observation and thought, 
of writing and revision. Therefore, I, with plea- 
sure, dedicate to you, as a token of my cordial 
respect, this work — the offspring of an ardent 
desire to promote, in those for whom it was in- 
tended, a higher and happier condition of life. 
Yours fraternally and gratefully, 

J. D. Bell. 

Weedsport, N. Y. 



CONTENTS. 



PART FIRST. 

PAPER I. 

INTRODUCTORY. 
REPRESENTATIVE INVALIDS. 

I. A Gentleman of Leisure page 14 

II. Laboriosus 18 

III. Hypochondriacus 24 

PAPER II. 

THE SENSES. 

I. The Beautiful 36 

II. Pliysiopathy 45 

in. The Eye and the Ear 47 

IV. The Seasons 49 

V. Utilitarianism 52 

PAPER III. 

THE STUDENT. 

I. Discipline .•..»..,. 60 

II. Pleasures 62 

III. Health 68 

IV. Idealization 77 

V. The Dreamer 80 

VI. The Recluse , 84 

(vii) 



viii Contents. 



PAPER IV. 

THE INTELLECTUAL SIDE OF LOVE. 

I. Imagination 90 

II. Reason 94 

III. Assimilation 98 

IV. Contrast.... 106 

PAPER V. 

THE THINKER. 

I. Character 122 

II. Traits 134 

III. Posthumous Influence 158 

IV. Manliness 161 

PAPER VI. 

CONVERSATION. 

I. Language 170 

II. Congeniality 173 

III. Gossip 178 

rV. Loquacity 182 

V. Egotism 185 

PAPER VII. 

WIT AND LAUGHTER. 

I. At the Table 193 

II. In Conversation 196 

III. Before the Audience 199 

IV. Dullness 202 

V. Affected Gravity 205 

VI. The Sportive and the Serious 209 

VIL The Witling 218 

VIIL Laughter 221 



Contents. ix 

PAPER VIII. 

TEARS. 

I. The Tenderness of Jesus 224 

II. Lachrymae Inanes ► 230 

III. Amiable Softness - 234 



PART SECOND. 
PAPER I. 

ASPIRATION. 

I. Capacity 246 

II. Energy 251 

III. Continuity in Endeavor 255 

lY . Balance 265 

V. Habit 282 

VI. Temperament 300 

VII. Courage 318 

PAPER II. 

GENIUS. 

I. Government ,. 330 

II. Custom 334 

III. Improvement 336 

IV. Personality , 338 

V. Regulation 348 

PAPER III. 

THE DISCOVERER. 

I. Pythagoras 351 

II. Archimedes 358 

III. Newton 364 



X Contents. 

PAPER IV. 

THE INVENTOR. 

I. Accident 373 

II. Inventive Genius 375 

III. The Inventor's Joy 379 

PAPER V. 

THE WRITER. 

I. Originality 404 

II. The Essayist 417 

III. The Bliss of the Writer 425 

IV. Power and Fame 428 

PAPER VI. 

THE THREE INSPIRATIONS. 

I. The Poet 436 

II. The Orator 440 

III TheHero 448 



PART FIRST. 



(11) 



A MAN. 



PAPER I. 

INTRODUCTORY. 
REPEESENTATIVE INVALIDS. 

I HAVE a riddle which, to some people, is not a 
riddle. Do you know the difference between life 
and existence? and the difference between ivorh and 
labor? Do you rejoice in strength of body and in 
a sweet elevation of soul, so that, to use Coleridge's 
happy simile, your head is like ''the head of a 
mountain in blue air and sunshine"? Cheerful- 
ness, Addison tells us, is a habit. Have you this ? 
Are aspiration and occupation so much to you, that, 
without them, you are sure you would soon sink 
and fade, from ennui ? In short, have you learned 
how to keep yourself so young, that a hundred 
years would not make you cease loving to live and 
living to love ? If so, then I have no riddle for you. 
Furthermore, you may, then, believe, if you will, 
that it is not chiefly for you, and such as you, that 
this book is designed. I write these pages, not so 
much for some people as for other people. They will, 
2 (13) 



14 A Man. 

more especially, court the attention of gentlemen of 
leisure, of my friend Laboriosus and such as he, and 
of my friend Hypochondriacus and such as he. 



A GENTLEMAN OF LEISURE. 

Every person should, to some extent, pay for his 
daily bread, in the Scriptural way — that is, by 
sweating for it. I knew a man— believe me, reader, 
this is more than fiction ; — I knew a man who was 
a brisk worker in the fields. His energy was ob- 
served and lauded by many. 

It was refreshing to walk along the borders of his 
acres, and look on the great gardens he had made. 
Few persons knew better than he how to raise corn, 
having broad, grand leaves ; wheat, responding to 
the summer wind, like a lake of green waters ; 
clover covering the soil, like a soft and gorgeous 
carpet. 

This man had shining horses, in whose friendly 
eyes he could see his own face, as in so many mir- 
rors. He had cows and oxen, each one of which 
was a large, mild creature whose lungs were like a 
pair of bellows, throwing out breaths of warm and 
healthful air. 

And all day long, this man was cheerful. Vigor 
glowed in his honest countenance. He whistled 
while he worked, and was not the less amiable when 
he was the more weary. 

But, one day, he said to his bright-eyed and in- 
dustrious wife : '^ We have, for many years, kept 
our hands busy amid these agricultural scenes ; let 



A Gentleman of Leisure. 15 

us, now, move down into the village, and make the 
residue of our days holidays." 

The fair woman replied, with delight, saying that 
" she had often thought how happy they would be, 
if they should become residents of the village, and 
have no more hard work to do." 

Time passed on ; and the wish of the farmer and 
his wife was accomplished. Their new home was 
situated on a pleasant street. They found it easy 
to attend all the meetings of their church. Their 
neighbors were enterprising villagers. ''How much 
more pleasant," said the Avife, ''is our village home 
than was our home in the country ! Here, our 
cares are few. We have, now, no hard tasks. What 
years of ease and delight are before us ! " 

The dear woman little thought, when she uttered 
these words, of the important truth, that, if the hu- 
man mind has long been accustomed to daily and 
engrossing occupation, it cannot long be happy, 
even in the most beautiful of situations, without 
such occupation. 

More time elapsed. The farmer became dis- 
pirited. The village into which he had moved, lost 
its power to animate him. When he walked in the 
street, every man whom he met seemed to him to 
have something to do, and to look coldly at him. 
because he was idle. When he entered the stores, 
the merchants seemed to him to treat him with in- 
difference. It was rarely that a man of business 
had more than a moment to spend in conversation 
with him. The grocer, the mechanic, the shop- 
keeper, the lawyer, the hardware dealer, and even 
the barber seemed to him to be ever in good spirits. 



i6 A Man. 

All the villagers seemed to him to have some busi- 
ness and to be happy, excepting himself. 

His look became less and less strong. The vivid 
consciousness of capacity — that feeling which makes 
the soul aspiring and self-reliant — -was not felt by 
him, all the day. He thought that his neighbors 
considered him lazy, and that his friends deemed 
him a bore. He almost envied the lot of the poor 
men around him, whose daily bread was the more 
sweet to them, because they had paid drops of sweat 
for it — that price for bread, which, in this world, 
God wishes to be always current. 

To this sad lounger, no chair proved a chair of 
ease, and no costly luxury turned out as relishable 
as he thought it would. He tried to find pleasure 
in whittling sticks, but did not succeed. He sought 
to amuse himself in reading the newspapers, but 
failed. He was uneasy in the justice's court, in the 
store, in the shop of the mechanic, in the grocery, 
and in the hotel, because he knew that he had no 
business in either of these places. If he rode with 
a friend to a neighboring city or village, he soon 
became weary of the place, because he had no busi- 
ness in it. In the streets of his own village, he was 
self-distrusting, dumpish, and wretched, because he 
had no business there. If, at any time, he was one 
of the crowd witnessing a dog fight, he came from 
the scene, exhibiting shame in his face, because he 
knew that he had no business there. 

He entered the door of his own house, with a 
gloomy physiognomy. Fro^m morning till night, 
his soul expressed no pleasant smile, and gave out 
no merry laugh. Health forsook his blood. The 



A Gentleman of Leisure. 17 

old brightness went out of his eyes. Disease made 
its nest in his brain. Ah ! that lounging farmer ! 
how wearily he passed those days which he dreamed 
would be holidays ! How woefully he labored be- 
cause he had nothing to do ! 

But, at length, he fortunately resolved to go to 
work. 

^'Let us now," said he to his wife, "move back 
into the country, and keep our hands busy, there, 
as long as we shall live." 

The pale-faced woman answered him, with a thrill 
of gladness: "Be it so." 

She, too, had experienced the habitual languor 
and misery resulting from a want of adequate occu- 
pation. In consequence of a renouncement of regu- 
lar and engrossing tasks, her brain had become 
sick. Her countenance beamed not, as it used to 
beam. It had faded. She had become feeble and 
dyspeptic. She had lost both the briskness and the 
bloom of her former self. 

Time passed on ; and the farmer and his wife 
became hale and happy again. To him, were re- 
stored the country appetite, the love of horses, of 
cows, of the great mild ox, of the hen cackling out 
its feeling of nameless joy in the pleasant forenoons, 
of the chivalrous and genial dog, of tillage, of grow- 
ing corn, of thriving wheat beautiful both for its 
inimitable greenness and its graceful undulations, 
and of the broad meadows of bee-haunted clover. 
He whistled again, just as he had been used to whistle. 
The sallowness of his face passed away. His former 
cheerfulness returned. He was a man again. 

To her, were restored the vivacity and the vigor 
2* B 



i8 A Mm. 

which she used to possess. Her mind and body 
which, in all that long lapse of unphilosophic lei- 
sure, did scarcely more than exist, had again be- 
come filled with life. She delighted in her domestic 
avocations. She almost coveted weariness itself, 
provided it might not be the weariness resulting 
from inactivity. The energetic woman bloomed 
again. How strong she was ! How free from pain 
and discontent ! How blessed both in her wakeful- 
ness and in her sleep ! 

It is the aim of the foregoing simple picture of 
life, to set forth the truth, that it is possible for a 
person to labor while he is doing nothing. He may 
labor under a burden of ennui. Every gentleman 
of popular leisure, is an invalid. You should not 
wish to be conscious of life, and yet unemployed. 
Half of every day may properly be time to you for 
repose ; but woe to you if you try to make time for 
repose of every day's other half! True leisure is 
defined by Dr. Franklin, as time for doing some- 
thing useful. '^This leisure," says he, ^'the dili- 
gent man will obtain, but the lazy man, never." 

Consider, now another representative invalid. 

H. 

LABORIOSUS. 

Grood writers make a distinction between work 
and labor. In work, you find joyous courage, socia- 
bility, heartiness, briskness; in labor, you find petu- 
lance, a slavish taciturnity, and the languor of ill- 
supplied waste. The Israelites under Solomon, 
worked; the Israelites under Pharaoh, labored. 



Laboriosus. 19 

Work sweetens life ; labor turns life into dull and 
painful existence. 

Hence it may be inferred, that, in many cases, 
successful industry, if it is labor and only that, is an 
evil. A competence may cost all that can make it 
enjoyable. The mistake of unnumbered industrious 
men, is, that they do not combine a manly intellec- 
tual activity with physical occupation. 

Laboriosus purchases a farm, paying down part 
of the price. He takes possession, immediately, 
expecting that, under his economical management, 
the farm itself will, in a few years, furnish the re- 
mainder. He thinks he will be very industrious, so 
that he may hasten the time when he shall be en- 
tirely free from debt. In accordance with this 
thought, he carefully plans his tasks, for the year, 
for the month, for the week, for the day, for the 
hour. He toils hard. He does not work — he lahoi^s. 
The hot sweat oozes through the pores of his skin. 
His weight continually diminishes. He comes to 
his table panting, and goes from it panting. His 
robustness becomes less and less. The Anakims 
themselves, had they toiled on land as Laboriosus 
does, would have become lean. He holds his plow, 
he uses his hoe, he sows his grain, he reaps his har- 
vest, he sells his produce — all this, as if he were 
born for nothing higher. 

See, now, what a price this man is paying for his 
farm ! Is money all ? Does not his impatience to 
become the sole owner of those few acres, cost him 
much of his capacity for noble intellectual attain- 
ments, and for those raptures which are ex]3erienced 
by progressive minds ? Does it not cost him social 



20 A Man. 

sympathies, those kindly feelings which are designed 
to be the foundation of the highest gentility? Does 
it not cost him those more tender affections, the 
continued culture of which would have given beauty 
and loveliness to his character ? Does it not cost 
him deep spiritual longings, the basis of those habits 
of solitary contemplation and devotion, which insure 
daily intercourse with the Father in Heaven ? 

And with these inestimable treasures, Laboriosus 
throws into the scale, how much of the symmetry 
and the strength of his body ! how much slavish 
fatigue ! how much excessive perspiration abound- 
ing with choice elements of vital energy! how much 
manly bloom ! See how the form of Laboriosus, 
which was once so erect, is bowed, as if he were 
accustomed to bite the dust ! See how his skin, 
once so smooth and fresh with young health, is 
hardening and drying on the over-exerted parts of 
his frame ! Calculate, if you can, the amount of 
geniality which his farm costs him ; the amount, 
also, of rosy flesh which he can never buy back, and 
of vigor which, in his prime, when it should be most 
abundant, will, perhaps, be nowhere. 

But Laboriosus has, at length, paid for his acres, 
and for all that is on them. ''Have I not," he says, 
" done well, in these few years ? Behold my posses- 
sions ! They are paid for. I am free from debt." 
Do you not see how great a mistake the man ex- 
pressed in those five last words ? Did not Laborio- 
sus, in paying for his farm, draw immensely on 
capital which was infinitely more valuable than 
gold ? Leaving out of view his intellectual indebt- 
edness, I ask, when, in all his future years, will he 



Laboriosus* 21 

be able to make good his long and excessive drain- 
age of that fund of vitality, which he bore in his 
body ? And whose was this priceless fund ? Whose 
is a man's wonderful organism, with its outer and 
inner powers, its myriad of delicate links connect- 
ing element with elementj organ with organ ? Let 
Paul answer this question. '' Glorify God," says 
he, ^'in your body and in your spirit, which are 
God's." The will of God is, that a man be free 
both from remorse of conscience, and from dyspep- 
sia, w^hich has been rightly called the remorse of a 
guilty stomach. Your neighbor would commit ho- 
micide if he should willfully take your life ; and if 
you should willfully take it, you would commit sui- 
cide. Now, suppose that you should find your 
neighbor taking your life, little by little, in some 
careless manner of his own. Then, you know it 
would be his duty to cease, at once, from his course 
of action. But suppose you should discover, that 
you yourself were, in some careless manner, taking 
your own life. Then, would it not be your duty to 
discontinue, as soon as possible, your suicidal prac- 
tices ? Mark the reflection which the true answer 
to this question, casts on Laboriosus. It was God's 
property which this man carried in his body. He 
was only a steward. His office, with respect to all 
his powers, is expressed in those words of Scripture : 
"Occupy till I come." How great, therefore, was 
his sin, when he shut his eyes to the value of those 
powers, in the just use of which he might have 
secured to himself a timely competence, a blissful 
culmination of manhood, and blessed years after- 
ward! 



22 A Man. 

May I not presume to ofter here, for the benefit 
of all the Laboriosi, a few words of plain counsel ? 

Unhappy men ! you are industrious. Many of 
you are mechanics ; a larger number of you are 
farmers. You possess minds naturally strong. Some 
of yoUj there is little doubt, are possessors of latent 
genius. How you might have moved the race, had 
you but cultivated your early longings for a firm 
and powerful character ! Now, . see what you are. 
In body, you are jaded. In intellect, you are dwarfed. 
Instead of living, you selfishly and painfully exist. 
You know not the bliss of thought. "What you 
might have been, you are not, and never will be. 
You are utterly wanting in public-spiritedness. You 
hardly read the news of the day. At the polls, you 
cast your ballots, with indifference. You read no 
works of literature. You visit no galleries of the 
fine arts. You attend no college commencements. 
You go to hear no literary or scientific lectures. I 
know not what reason I have, for thinking you will 
ever peruse these pages. You exhibit no patriotism. 
You know your country but little better than the 
snail knows the forest in which it has its shell. 
Should one of you be required to move his building, 
for the sake of a railroad, or some other public pro- 
ject, how, then, would his ignoble selfishness reveal 
itself in blind resistance ! I do not see, that you 
are advancing toward anything intellectually worthy. 
It is true that you are ever adding to your posses- 
sions. But your possessions are little worth, in 
comparison with those of a developed and cultivated 
mind. You have admirable houses ; but you have 
not admirable souls. Your acres abound with fine 



Laboriosus. 23 

crops ; but your minds do not abound with fine 
thoughts. Your happiness is unreal. In your eager- 
ness for more, you do not enjoy the property which 
you have abeady accumulated. Lorenzo Dow, it is 
said, once observed, concerning a certain grasping, 
avaricious farmer, that, if he had the whole world 
inclosed in a single field, he would hardly be con- 
tent without a patch on the outside for potatoes. 
How many a Laboriosus has the spirit of that 
farmer ! 

But, dear Laboriosi ! can you not, even in this 
late day, begin a good work of intellectual culture ? 
Can you not become glad thinkers? This is not 
impossible. There is little impossible to him who 
wills. It is true, you cannot succeed, as you would 
have done, had you engaged in the work of educa- 
tion, at some earlier stage of life. But you can, at 
least, honor yourselves. You can make yourselves 
appear before Grod, in better character, as his 
stewards. Generous and genial, you can become. 
Surely, you can lose some of your love of self, and 
can gain, in place thereof, a little genuine love of 
country. Grod help you so to do ! And may the 
time not be far hence, when this world will look 
new to you; when different will seem to you all 
grand objects in nature, all that is only beautiful, 
all voices, languages, laws, books, men ; and when, 
as you stand by the far-reaching railway and behold 
the steaming and snorting iron horse, speeding by, 
with his train of magnificent chariots, causing the 
air to vibrate as if it were shaken by many winds, 
and making the great earth tremble, you will be 



24 A Man. 

moved to exclaim : '^Here is my country ! how can 
I add to lier greatness and her splendor?'' 

I have described two representative invalids. I 
begin, now, to describe a third. 

ni. 

HYPOCHONDKIACUS. 

Hypochondriacus differs from Laboriosus, much 
as a day of unmitigated dismalness may be said to 
differ from a day on which there is an alternation 
of gloom and sunshine. He is, habitually, a sad 
man. He possesses, however, some amiable quali- 
ties. I know not, that he is ever cynically sullen. 
He growls at nobody. He is not misanthropic. He 
is harmless. This is one side of my friend's charac- 
ter. Concerning the other side, I have much to 
say of traits which are, at least, unpleasant. For 
Hypochondriacus has, I think, led an unmanly life. 
There was no need for him to become a hypochon- 
driac ; and why did he not learn that, like a man ? 

A disease, partly physical, and partly mental, 
possesses him. It is hypochondriasis. It is morbid 
melancholy. Cullen has named, as its prominent 
symptoms, '' a languor, listlessness, or want of reso- 
lution and activity, with respect to all undertakings; 
a disposition to seriousness, sadness, and timidity, 
as to all future events, and an apprehension of the 
worst or most unhappy state of them." But some 
of these symptoms are, perhaps, thrown out, more 
impressively, in those words of Burchell, in G-old- 
smith's delightful story of the Vicar of Wakefield. 
•'Physicians," says he, ^'tell us of a disorder in 



Hypochondriacus. 25 

which the whole body is so exquisitely sensitive, 
that the slightest touch gives pain : what some have 
thus suflered in their persons, this gentleman felt 
in his mind. The slightest distress, whether real 
or fictitious, touched him to the quick; and his soul 
labored under a sickly sensibility of the miseries 
of others/* 

Hypochondriacus is a person who has rarely any- 
thing pleasant to say. His very laugh is doleful. 
There seems ever the same want of warmth in the 
hand with which he returns the pressure of an adieu 
or of a welcome ; and, so far as I have observed, 
his countenance is never entirely unclouded. If 
there happens a short interval, in the conversation 
one is holding with him, he is accustomed to fill it 
with the lugubrious sigh of ^'Oh dear me!" He 
would scarcely be Hypochondriacus, but for that 
sigh. How bright soever be the day, how happy 
soever be the occasion, you would hear it, should 
you be with him, I dare not say how many times. 
Fortune salutes Hypochondriacus, only to receive 
his mournful " Oh dear me ! " He peruses a fresh 
letter, containing pleasant words from an old and 
valued friend ; but when he has come to its close, 
he breathes his dismal " Oh dear me ! " His atten- 
tion is called to a vivid rainbow on the clouds, to 
the beautiful prattle of a child, or to a charming 
new book ; but, in every such instance, Hypochon- 
driacus has usually one and the same dreary utter- 
ance; and that utterance is '^ Oh dear me!" I 
have, often, silently inquired why it is that life, in 
this goodly world, continually presents to my friend 
aspects so deeply somber. Few bereavements has 
3 



26 A Man. 

he, over which to mourn. Friends have neither 
betrayed nor forsaken him ; and, surely, he has no 
enemies so bitter as to slander him. Furthermore, 
he is the possessor of what men call a handsome 
property and an honorable name. 'Why does he 
pay that devotion to sorrow, which he does pay, 
through all the beautiful springs and summers, 
autumns and winters ? 

After thus communing with myself, one day, I 
rose from my chair, intending to visit Hypochon- 
driacus, and unbosom to him the burden of these 
my musings concerning him. I found him sitting 
in his room, alone. I seated myself at his side. 
We talked, for a few moments, on various topics. 
By-and-by, I purposely discontinued our unim- 
portant intercourse, so that I might get for a text 
to wiiat I was ready to say, a fresh repetition of 
my friend's melancholy sigh. According to my 
expectation, the sigh came ; and I began. 

Hypochondriacus, said I, why do you so often 
give utterance to this plaintive sigh ? Have you 
been less fortunate than other men ? Have you ex- 
perienced so much affliction and grief, that your life 
has become to you a burden ? Do you find nothing, 
either in the natural world or in the world of 
thought, that has power to call into joyful exercise 
the higher powers of your soul ? 

Here, I paused. Hypochondriacus, turning his 
sad eyes round, so that he might look into my own, 
replied : 

" I concluded, a long time ago, that there is but 
little real enjoyment possible to a man, in this 
dreary world. Consider how much each one of us 



Hypochondriacus. 27 

must, from the cradle to the grave, experience of 
confusion and trouble, of toil and weariness, of 
affliction and anguish ! The life we here live seems 
to me little better than a slow journey across a land 
of malaria and mourning. Does not every season, 
as it rolls round, measure off a new period of per- 
plexities and distresses ? What is there, either in 
the natural world or in the world of thought, that 
is well adapted to inspire profound cheerfulness ? 
Does not the former contain as much deformity as 
beauty ? as much to appall as to please ? And is 
not the latter darkened by the effect of infirmities 
and diseases, sins and crimes, strifes and tumults ? 
Be assured, that Experience, man's most stern 
teacher, has given you few severe lessons, if you 
are not yet able to see a reason for frequent and 
doleful sighs/' 

Thus spoke Hypochondriacus. I confess, that, 
for awhile, I hardly knew what answer I should 
give to his words of complaint. My usual mood of 
cheerfulness had been disturbed, by the painful con- 
viction that there was one person, in this interesting 
world, to whom all the days seemed dismal. I 
replied, however, in as appropriate a manner, as I 
could, under circumstances so peculiar. I told him, 
that he had, certainly, taken a false view of life. 
He had ignored the brighter aspects of our earthly 
state. Countless sources of pleasure are accessible 
to us. We need not live long, unrejuvenated. 
ITature presents innumerable objects of beauty and 
animation, adapted to keep the senses youthful. 
There are, also, the possibilities of delightful social 
experience. The intercourse of kindred may be 



28 A Man. 

made to afford magical felicities. There is sweet- 
ness in friendship. In true patriotism, there are 
manly pleasures. And every act of real philan- 
thropy, is, according to a certain law of human 
nature, always followed by a deep and blessed satis- 
faction of the soul. I bade him rouse himself from 
his melancholy languor, and go forth on the adorned 
earth, and among men, with the light of cheerful 
thoughts and amiable wishes beaming in his eyes. 
In this manner, I, at that time, treated the ques- 
tion at issue between us. Hypochondriacus re- 
sponded, in a few words, partaking of the same 
morbid sadness which characterized those he had 
previously spoken. He admitted, that some per- 
sons are much happier than others ; but he con- 
ceived them able to be so, simply because they are 
less thoughtful and hence more light-hearted than 
others. But a true view of human life, he insisted, 
cannot but dispose a candid, reflecting person to be 
almost habitually sad and taciturn. I lingered, a 
short time, in silence; and then returned to my 
study. Seating myself there, I began to give the 
subject which had been so inadequately discussed, 
a thorough though solitary reconsideration. Turn- 
ing it on every side, I endeavored to view it, in all 
its aspects and bearings. Hypochondriacus, said 
I to myself, is a man of representative peculiarities. 
He is one of a large class of persons, whose souls 
the sunshine seems never to penetrate. For, among 
the various classes of mankind, I find two that are 
marked by nearly opposite characteristics. To the 
former, belong those persons who seem, wherever 
they are, to realize joy and satisfaction. They 



Hypochondriacus. 29 

never murmur. They have what Coleridge calls 
"the sweet breath of hope and advancement." If 
sickness or adversity assails them, they endure the 
assault with cheerful patience. Forgetful of all the 
ills and the miseries which they themselves have 
suffered, they persistently refuse to think that they 
have ever languished either in sorrow or in pain. 
In short, they make the journey of life, as joyfully 
as travelers in the East make the ascent of the 
Nile — that " Paradise of Travel " ; and seem to go 
chirping through j^outh, chirping through manhood, 
chirping through old age, and chirping on into the 
other world ! 

To the latter class, belong, on the contrary, those 
who are not often wanting in melancholy repinings ; 
who receive through their senses few exhilarating 
impressions from the natural world ; who know not 
the fruition of genuine life. These persons are ill 
acquainted with ITature. They rarely commune 
with her. They heed not her teachings, her re- 
quirements, her munificence in respect to merited 
rewards, her just severity in respect to deserved 
punishments. When, with a gentle spirit, she cor- 
rects them for carelessly or willfully breaking her 
wholesome laws, they pout, and call her cruel. 
When she specially favors them, they imagine that 
she is playing on them some cunning trick. They 
seem to turn with suspicion from the very birds 
which sing in and sing out the softer seasons. 
Their religion — so much as they have — takes a 
color of sickliness from their dogged adhesion to a 
multitude of gloomy absurdities. In their prayers, 
they adopt almost the language and the tone of 



30 A Man. 

despair itself; and I cannot but think that, if the 
Lord should directly answer any one of their peti- 
tions, his answer would be some rebuke for their per- 
petual complaint and their indisposition to trust him 
and his goodness. 

ISTothing beautiful seems to be for these persons. 
All the year, the same stars — those everlasting 
'^ flowers of the skies" — -which were admired by 
the shepherd astronomers of Chaldea, five thousand 
years ago, rise, at evening, and gleam, unobserved, 
into their joyless faces. Tribes of curious insects 
are near them, every day of the fragrant and melo- 
dious summer, burrowing and building, flocking 
and glittering ; but nothing, to them, are these busy 
little beings. The life they live, is a deathly exist- 
ence. They seem to suffer what Charles Lamb 
describes, as " depressions black as a smith's beard. 
Vulcanic, Stygian." But, alas ! this is not all that 
they suifer. To the long catalogue of their grievous 
inheritances, must be added the pity of life-loving 
hearts. But such pity ! It is all that it can be, 
and yet how miserable a boon to these complainers, 
who court even death, and mourn because the grim 
monster delays his coming ! What relief can it be, 
to him who is under the fearful spell of hypochon- 
driasis, to be commiserated by others, in view of 
the fact that he possesses senses and intellectual 
powers which, if he had properly cultivated them, 
would have made him joj^ous, in all his life ; would 
have borne him throughout a manly and rapturous 
career ? And yet, in the exercise of this pity which 
rises in generous hearts, for the victims of morbid 
melancholy, how is it possible to be entirely blind 



Hypochondriacus. 31 

to the cause of their dejection and misery? One 
will mention — he feels that he must, even though 
his words must needs be like the rattling gravel 
and dirt sown on a sunk coffin — why they are 
hypochondriacs, fading and drooping in their dark 
and sullen mood. 

Melancholy ! thou mother of discontent and of 
the love of death ! Who can tell the number of thy 
victims? Thou hast been round all the world. 
There is no lovely land, with the soil of which 
mingle not the remains of many who died in thy de- 
structive embrace. Thou approachest him who has 
thought to spend the remaining years of his life, in 
the lap of competence ; and on his brow thou 
writest the prognostic of an untimely end. Wealth 
is yonder. I have gazed on those fertile acres, 
those highlands from which inviting vistas of land- 
scape are visible, that dwelling-house shaded by 
beautiful trees. I would say, that Content must 
surely have its throne in the midst of this domestic 
opulence. But I know, that thou, Melancholy ! 
hast entered enclosures, even like these, and left 
within them the poison of thy destroying breath. 
Thou seemest to glory, in thy power to bring down 
retired affluence. To the abodes of industrious 
poverty, thou comest not. Poor men, a thousand 
and a thousand, are passing jubilantly through these 
years. They know, that mankind, in all the world, 
must needs hold conflict with care and change, with 
sickness and disappointment, with old age and 
death. They know, that, by the happiest, tears are 
to be shed, over the scattered fragments of long-che- 
rished hopes, over the mournful results of unexpected 



32 A Man. 

adversity and of misplaced confidencej over the 
ruins of friendship, and over the smitten objects of 
love's long and fond idolatry. And yet, they are 
cheerful. The sky over their heads seems to them 
always kind. They love to live, and live to love. 
Their hearts have no winters; but, in them, reigns 
one sw^eet unending season — a summer perennial. 
Late they return to heaven ! But when Fortune 
retires from the dusty scene of business, in antici- 
pation of a great rest, then, Melancholy ! thou 
dost promise thyself an easy victory. The most 
expensive luxuries soon become insipid to him on 
whose joy-lighted face thou breathest. He no longer 
takes delight of his possessions. He is inwardly 
wretched. The days are unpleasant to him, and 
the nights unutterably gloomy. His mind is filled 
with dismal images. He is, now, a hypochondriac. 
Henceforth, pleasure to him, is pain ; life to him, a 
protracted death. Spring comes, but with no power 
to entertain his senses. Summer finds him de- 
pressed and incommunicative. Autumn profusely 
scatters ripe and fragrant fruits round him, but 
receives from him only a sigh in the place of thanks. 
"Winter, at length, makes his appearance. And 
now thy victim, Melancholy ! thinks of the storm 
of the day, and the moaning wind of the night, and 
wishes that he were lying beneath the frozen ground, 
and that the snow or the sleet were beating against 
the sod of his grave ! 

Thus I thought and soliloquized, and soliloquized 
and thought, there in my silent room. The evening 
was at hand. Its stealthy shadows were falling 



Hypochondriacus. 33 

around and over me. But I lingered. Images of 
representative invalids, of sad, repining men, brood- 
ing over human ills, and ready to utter their feel- 
ings, in those words of Yoltaire, ^' I wish I had 
never been born ! " — such v/ere the images which, 
in that hour, thronged in my mind. I had a vision 
of men eager for death, and preparing for the dread- 
ful act of suicide. I thought of the words of ^^Elia," 
and seemed to hear Hypochondriacus murmuring to 
himself: 

*^ By myself walking, 

To myself talking, 

"When as I ruminate, 

On my untoward fate, 

Scarcely seem I 

Alone sufficiently. 

Black thoughts continually 

Crowding my privacy ; 

They come unbidden, 

Like foes at a wedding, 

Thrusting their faces 

In better guests' places. 

Peevish and malcontent. 

Clownish, impertinent. 

Dashing the merriment; 

So, in like fashions, 

Dim cogitations 

Follow and haunt me. 

Striving to daunt me, 

In my heart festering, 

In my ears whispering, 
* Thy friends are treacherous, 

Thy foes are dangerous. 

Thy dreams ominous.' '' 

And while the procession of this hideous imagery 
was passing and repassing before my inner vision, 
the question seemed repeatedly to echo, in the 



34 A Man. 

clianibers of thought : " Can you not exert yourself, 
in such a way as to rescue from their state of 
habitual depression, some of these melancholy suf- 
ferers ? " In answer, there seemed a voice speaking 
within me: ^'Yes, even you can do something — go 
and write." 

Such, my reader, were some of the circumstances 
which gave rise to this volume of serial papers, now 
presented to you for perusal.* 

It will be evident to you, that, in preparing them, 
the author did not permit his pen to range with 
entire freedom, except over the domain of the intel- 
lectual nature. Though he was, the while, far from 
neglecting the important relation which bodily cul- 
ture, the education of the aifections, and the careful 
training of the moral susceptibility, each hold to 
the higher welfare of man, yet he aimed, more espe- 
cially, to show that a developed and cultivated in- 
tellect is indispensable to every kind of exquisite 
and lofty enjoyment. This portion of man's com- 
plex being is considered as embracing all those 
powers which are essential to perception, to thought, 
and to achievement. The work is naturally divided 
into two parts. In part first, are discussed the supe- 
rior possibilities of minds ordinarily endowed. In 
part second, special attention is given to the blissful 

^ The author takes this opportunity to state that many of the 
thoughts expressed in these papers have appeared, from time to 
time, in his contributions, for the last eight or nine years, to the 
^* Ladies^ Repository,'^ published at Cincinnati, and edited by the 
urbane Rev. D. W. Clark, D.D. 



Hypochondriacus. 35 

possibilities of minds endowed with extraordinary 
capacities. 

I trust, dear reader, tliat, in any case, there would 
be some value to you, of a book having the purpose 
and the scope of mine. If yours is a sweet and 
cheerful disposition, surely this treatise contains 
nothing adapted to make it less so ; and, if your 
disposition is not sweet and cheerful, but sour and 
gloomy, then there were little need for me to say 
how earnestly I have endeavored, in all these pages, 
to awaken powers within you, by the happy exer- 
cise of which, the acidity and the clouds shall be 
entirely driven from your inner world, and the 
breath of your life be made more fragrant than that 
of roses. 



36 A Man. 



PAPEE II. 

THE SENSES. 

Around us, in nature, are things innumerable, 
out of which no Midas can draw the gold of gain. 
They speak and sparkle. They are beautiful, and 
have their admirers. They are lovely, and have 
their lovers. But they speak and sparkle, and are 
beautiful, and are lovely, only to those whose eyes 
and ears communicate, intimately, with the higher 
powers of their minds. The fair children of the 
Seasons do not charm men of stronger cerebellum 
than cerehrum — of more propensity than intellect. 
These sweet children, my friend, have no money to 
give you ; but I hope you will not turn your back 
on them, for that. 

I. 

THE BEAUTIFUL. 

Come, now, and let us reason together concerning 
the beautiful. It exists. You do not deny this. 
It exists distinct from the useful. It is good for 
nothing for food. You cannot digest crystals. It 
is not often you can barter the beautiful for cash. 
You cannot buy and sell — you cannot even handle 
— the rainbow. There will, surely, never be a mar- 
ket for the little birds which sing, so charmingly, 
at five o'clock of the summer morning. Treat the 



The Beautiful. 37 

beautiful as capital, and you straightway take the 
beauty out of the beautiful. 

What, then, is the value of the beautiful ? If all 
men and women were mere utilitarians, then there 
were none of the race to consider it valuable. But, 
if men and women were designed to be mere utili- 
tarians, then there were a superfluous congruity 
between man's higher powers and the beautiful. 
Neither supposition can be true. Nothing is worth- 
less^ that is really, though only beautiful. The 
senses have, therefore, a more excellent purpose. 
We see and hear, touch and smell, in one day, far 
fewer things adapted for food or for the market, 
than things adapted to make us more refined in 
intellect. The beautiful draws man's attention 
from the useful, and tends to make him a higher 
thinker. See how many things tend, so far as you 
can see, only to this. Not much better, to the 
utilitarian, is the crystal for possessing its regular 
form, the beam of light for giving its spectrum, or 
the clouds for presenting their varied versions of 
the sunshine. What, to this man, is the bloom of 
the flower, the green garniture of the tree, or the 
undulation of the growing grain ? He cannot, in 
his way, speculate on rainbows, graceful motions, 
and the odors of flowers. In Ruskin's phrase, this 
man is ''under the Nebuchadnezzar curse that 
sends men to grass like oxen." What a world we 
should now have, had some mind like his been 
consulted, in those first six days, by the Maker ! 
How useless, he seems ready to say, is all this 
decoration laid out on the forests ! How useless 
the brilliant hues of ripening fruits ! How useless 
4 



38 A Man. 

are lilies and roses ! Why was not every peacock 
feathered like yonder plain, egg-producing fowl? 
Of what use is the clumsy beetle's shining speckles 
and hues ? How much better is this world, because 
it contains green leaves, gorgeous blossoms, beauti- 
ful feathers, and glittering insects ? What is the 
value of all the famed fine arts ? Can statues, 
paintings, musical compositions, architectural super- 
fluities, and waxen fingerwork bear a comparison, 
in solid worth, with well-built ships, store-houses, 
and banking buildings, or with bushels of clean 
wheat and corn ? 

Of this character, the views of all utilitarians, if 
we may infer their views from their manner of life, 
partake, in a less or greater measure. And what is 
the lesson which this fact inculcates ? This — that 
man is liable to mistake the true design of created 
things, and the true end of life. 

Let us consider, carefully, the twofold congruity 
which exists between the nature of man and the 
objects of his senses. 

Here is a world. On examination, we find that 
the widest variety marks its arrangement. Its sur- 
face is not all rock, though such it might have been. 
Provision was made for the disintegration of rock 
into soil, and for the forming and the filling of vast 
reservoirs of water. Again ; we find that the 
earthy portion of this globe produces not only the 
grasses, grains, trees, and numerous other products 
indispensable to animal life, but also products, with- 
out number, which, when considered with reference 
to their adaptation to sustain such a life, must be 
declared utterly worthless. The grasses become food 



The Beautiful. 39 

for brute animals. The grains become food for both 
man and beast. From the woody substance of the 
trees, fuel is obtained, tools constructed, and houses 
made. Now, by means of these and a few other 
similar products, it were not difficult for a man to 
procure luxuries and to accumulate wealth. Were 
the world incapable of producing things of higher 
rank, and were man incapable of higher employ- 
ment, then a person might, perhaps, reasonably 
conclude that luxury and wealth should be the chief 
objects of pursuit. But, in creating the earth, the 
Maker obviously had in view something more noble 
than to supply the foundation and the material, for 
fertile lands, sheltering roofs, riches, and an easy 
living. The intellectual and the moral powers of 
man were taken into consideration, as of superior 
importance. Hence, the variety, in the world's ar- 
rangement, is so widely extended. Everything has 
its mysterious something. There are more colors 
than are necessary. There are more sounds, more 
odors, more tastes, and more shapes, than are neces- 
sary. Nowhere is nature absolutely unvarying and 
dull. Even the desert has its attractive mysteries. 
No two things, no two effects are ever precisely 
alike. The same law, it is true, may operate, simul- 
taneously, in two places ; but the results of the 
operation of the law, in one of the places, must 
needs be different from those of its operation, in the 
other. In some respects, every particle of sand 
differs from its fellow-particles. There is no sub- 
stance, no space, that has not its interesting secret. 
Torricelli said he had produced a perfect vacuum. 
But, if Nature could then have spoken, she would 



40 A Man. 

have told him of finer fluids still undulating in the 
receiver which he thought he had emptied. Do you 
not see the reason why it was said, of old, that 
" iSTature abhors a vacuum V There is never a space 
so void as to have no vibrating occupant. 

To you and me, this venerable World is ready to 
be, for all our days hence, a noble friend and 
teacher. Ever is she waiting to entertain us, in 
goodly modes. Between her and ourselves, there 
would be sweet and healthful converse, did we but 
keep our senses open to her processes, her utter- 
ances, and her scenes and objects of beauty. This 
converse would transpire through the susceptibility 
of touch. It is by touch, that the mind learns the 
best it knows of the beautiful. All perception is 
through touch. You.r fingers are not your only 
fingers. The eye is a sort of finger. Such, also, is 
every other sense. You perceive by your fingers 
proper, when the network of nerves in their ends is 
in contact with some object or element. You per- 
ceive by your eyes, when the network of nerves 
forming the retina is in contact with rays or waves 
of light. You perceive by hearing, when the net- 
work of nerves which form the tympanum is in con- 
tact with waves of air. When the nerves of your 
olfactories are in contact with odoriferous particles 
of matter, then you perceive by smelling. And 
when the nerves of your tongue are in contact with 
tastable things, then you perceive by tasting. 
Thus, through touch, we may learn lessons from 
brooks, flowers, leaves, rainbows, snowflakes, cas- 
cades, and all musical objects. The lover of land- 
scapes is charmed and proflted, in his solitary wan- 



The Beautiful. 41 

derings ; but he has only his own portion of delight- 
ful and elevating converse with the "World. For 
him, are the charms of configuration, of growth, 
and of movement, as these are exhibited in the 
varying scenery of the Seasons. The man of a 
philosophic taste is also permitted to share in her 
wholesome tuition. For him, there is a higher class 
of lessons. The World invites him to her secret 
places of interesting life and force. He enjoys fine 
surprises. To him, it belongs to uncompound the 
water, and handle its constituent gases with a leger- 
demain of his own. It is his, to penetrate the rough 
bark of the tree, and observe the delicate currents 
of sap, as they mysteriously meander along the 
hair-like fibers of the wood. It is his, to see in the 
bird which flies by him, more than a little soarer 
and songster dressed in showy feathers. He per- 
ceives those nice provisions which secure to it the 
power of flight. He peers into its bones, observing 
that each one is filled with a marrow of air. He 
examines its respiratory system, and finds that large 
air-cells are distributed in various parts of its body, 
which conspire, with its ever-expanded lungs, to 
diminish as much as possible its specific gravity. 
He enters the forest, and compares one bird with 
another. Thus, he ascertains the characteristics of 
dififerent genera and species. He follows the fair 
creatures, in their yearly migrations, asking who 
taught geography to them ; and, sitting in the shade 
of the summer foliage, or ^' lying on sunny slopes 
of half-holidays," he listens to their happy melodies, 
and inquires whether the time will or will not ever 
4* 



42 A Man. 

come, wlien those mysterious songs will be trans- 
lated. 

It is, also, a part of the experience of the philo- 
sophic observer of nature, to see in the little animal 
which burrows, buzzes, or sends forth its shrill note 
near him, more than a form of unattractive appear- 
ance, and a life of unimportant activities. Through 
the microscope, the fly exhibits its unnumbered 
eyes ; and, in drops of water, almost pellucid and 
apparently uninhabited, he sees, by the aid of the 
same instrument, curious aquatic beings, stirring 
with a rare quickness of limb, and a rare vigor of 
respiration. He descends, with the ant, to its sub- 
terranean settlement, and learns the laws and the 
customs of its busy community. He follows the 
spider to its retreat, and marks the working of its 
wonderful loom. He goes to the polyp's coral resi- 
dence, and watches the operations of those minute 
and short-lived animals whose interwoven skeletons 
form the textu.re of mighty reefs, and, in some in- 
stances, the ribs of solid continents. With reverent 
delight, he traces insects, in their progress through 
that inexplicable metamorphosis which illustrates 
the resurrection of man from the dead ! 

*^ Thus, shall we cast this mortal coil aside, 
And to the tomb awhile our forms intrust ; 
Within its gloomy precincts to abide, 
Until the resurrection of the just/' 

Who may not, by his senses, learn lessons from 
the World, which shall be so entertaining as effect- 
ually to cure discontent and scatter the dismal 
clouds of melancholy ? Listen, thou who, like 



The Beautiful 43 

Hypochondriacus, art sinking in despondency. Con- 
tinually, thou feelest the pressure of a morbid lan- 
guor. Thou teasest thy friends and thy physician, 
on the loveliest days of the year, with plaintive 
recitals of thine inner experience. Go thou, often, 
into the fields and the forests, where thou mayest 
hear the birds sing, see the fishes frisk, snufi" the 
breath of the flowers, and inhale vigor from the 
breezes. So do, and thy diseased nature will, by- 
and-by, be repaired ; thy pale face will reappear 
with the glow of youthful health. Listen, also, thou 
student, with whom all goes ill to-day. Thou feelest 
unfit to grapple with thy tasks, in mathematics and 
philosophy. Thou sittest, with thine eyes and thy 
brow in pain. Thou askest where has gone thy glad 
courage of yesterday. Wouldst thou know ? Leave, 
then, thy close room ; make many nimble steps on 
the bosom of the large, fair World ; try the pure air 
awhile ; drink from the spring w^hich is bubbling 
from the distant hill-side or ledge of rocks. Do 
thou this ; and when thou resumest thy studies, thou 
wilt, surely, find thyself a brave young man again. 
And listen, thou whose occupation appears a more 
cruel tyrant to thee, than Pharaoh himself was to 
the Israelites. Thou hast no holidays. What liberty 
enjoyest thou? The exclusiveness of thine industry 
has made thee utterly indiflferent to thy higher in- 
terests. Thou hast the spirit of Laboriosus ! Oh ! 
be persuaded to a nobler life ! Go thou forth, under 
^Hhe heavens of the Lord," and look around thee. 
See how vast and how beautiful is the World ! 
Possibly, thou mayest yet save thyself from the 
uselessness and the meanness of a life, in which the 



44 A Man. 

powers of tlie immortal soul are absorbed in insu- 
lated concerns, even as tlie overflowings of tbe 
desert-fountain are drunk up, by a little patch of 
dry, barren sand ! And may every person, day by 
day, hold company with the World ! May a taste 
for the beautiful, for the grand, and for the sublime, 
be faithfully cultivated by the young and by the 
old ! Go forth at morning, go forth at sunset, go 
forth in the evening, thou citizen, thou mechanic, 
thou merchant, thou student, thou teacher, thou 
minister ; and do not return to thy tasks till thou 
art sure that thy frame has been healthily braced, 
thy blood rallied from its ^^idle lapse," and thy 
brain filled with fresh vigor. 

It is a painful fact, that most of the race lose 
sight, almost entirely, of the higher design of the 
senses. Swift, in his Tale of a Tuh^ says that 'Hhose 
entertainments and pleasures we most value in life, 
are such as dupe and play the wag Avith the senses." 
This assertion fitly applies to thousands of people. 
Do not show-boxes attract a larger number of eyes 
than microscopes and telescopes ? Do not prac- 
ticed jugglers command better patronage than pub- 
lic experimenters in natural science ? What are 
nearly all fashionable amusements, but illusions for 
the senses ? Many a pleasure-seeking youth has, 
undoubtedly, often asked himself, where, after all, 
is the real delight afforded by the evening party 
and by the night dance, by theatrical exhibitions and 
by the piano feats of ladies of style. '^IIow fading 
and insipid," says the Dean, in another place, "• do 
all objects accost us, that are not conveyed in the 
vehicle of delusion ! How shrunk is everything as 



Physiopathy. 45 

it appears in the glass of nature ! So tliat, if it 
were not for the assistance of artificial mediums, 
false lights, refracted angles, varnish and tinsel, 
there would be a mighty level in the felicity and 
enjoyment of men." Alas ! that so many pause not 
to see where the fountains of youth and happi- 
ness are flowing forever ! Alas ! that so few act on 
the obvious truth, that no other earthly entertain- 
ments can take the place of those furnished by the 
natural world, and, like them, preserve the bloom 
of human health ! The saying should never be 
allowed to become trite, that ^^God made the coun- 
try, and man made the town." 

n. 

PHYSIOPATHY. 

A few, in every age, have justly prized the plea- 
sures which have their rise in the senses. The 
poets have a love of nature, which makes them an 
order of high and admirable characters. Indeed, is 
it not a sudden discovery, in early life, of the beauti- 
ful in nature, which, originally, kindles in the soul 
the flame of the poetic inspiration ? Poets are said 
to be born, not made — which saying is true. But 
is it not nature which puts your born poet in tune ? 
What would you think of the bard who should pro- 
fess never to have been passionately fond of natural 
scenery ? John Foster calls the poetic suscepti- 
bility, Physiopathy, He conceives it to be ''the 
faculty of pervading all nature with one's own 
being, so as to have a perception, a life, an agency, 
in all things." This is as much as to say, that 



46 A Man. 

nature has no better friend tlian tlie poet. The poet 
abandons the merely useful, and devotes himself to 
the beautifuL He that is destined to become such 
a man, receives, unexpectedly, through his senses, 
the great impulse which forms his taste. He, per- 
haps, awakes, on some morning of the summer, and 
goes forth on the breast of the all-nourishing earth. 
Hitherto, he has experienced no higher inspiration 
than maybe supposed common to a careless animal, 
possessing the capability of speech and the power 
of laughter. The wonders of the natural world 
have made only transient impressions on his mind. 
He has cared little for the charms of scenery, little 
for the hills which gleam with exultation as they 
receive the rising sun's first outburst of dazzling 
splendor. But, now, the vision-morning has dawned 
on hiS soul. His senses are attracted by the 
beautiful. The eye is surprised at what it sees, 
the ear at what it hears, the fingers at what 
they touch, the tongue at what it tastes, the nos- 
trils at what they smell. See, here, the beautiful 
grass ! he is ready to exclaim. See yonder great 
glowing sun, ceaselessly shedding its life-giving 
heat and light ! See those birds, these flowers, 
those rivers, these forests, those lakes, this ocean ! 
See yonder white rapids, bearing over the rocky 
brink their mass of liquid thunder ! See this dull 
worm, passing by a mysterious transfiguration into 
a gold- winged butterfly! '^ Consider the lilies of 
the field; they toil not; they spin not; yet Solo- 
mon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of 
these." And, as spiritedly as the ten thousand 
retreating G-reeks, under Xenophon, shouted, ''The 



The Eye and the Ear. 47 

sea ! the sea ! " when from the mountain-tops which 
had long cut off the dear sight, they had at last caught 
a full glimpse of the waters which washed the shores 
of their native land, so spiritedly is this happy per- 
son ready, now, to shout, and shout again, ^' The 
beautiful! the beautiful!" At some subsequent 
point of time, he is expressing his thoughts and 
feelings, in verse. He, perhaps, recalls his first 
poetic view of the stars ; and, in a strain of musical 
thought like that which follows, sings his remem- 
brance of the early inspiration : 

*^0 what a vision were the stars, 

When first I saw them burn on high, 
Eolling along, like living cars 

Of light, for gods to journey by!'' 

Immortal Homer, undoubtedly, took, in some 
similar manner, the pristine passion which made 
him a songful thinker. It was, perhaps, experi- 
enced by him, in his boyhood, when he used to 
wander along the shore of that ^' deep-sounding" 
sea, to which the Iliad and the Odyssey so often 
refer, with sonorous allusion. 

ni. 

THE EYE AND THE EAR. 

The pleasures of the more elevated senses, satisfy 
a demand, in the soul's life, which is satisfied by no 
other delights. Though not superior to the felici- 
ties of thought, still they are to be regarded as 
elevated and exquisite. They, obviously, hold an 
intermediate rank between organic and purely intel- 
lectual pleasures. The aye and the ear are distin- 



48 A Man. 

guislied, for being unaccompanied in their use by 
any felt physical impression. The mind, it should 
seem, holds a relation of peculiar intimacy, both to 
the retina and to the tympanum. Sensation and 
perception are, therefore, made to seem, in respect 
to these two organs, as if merged in one experience. 
Indeed, the mind can, with perfect propriety, be 
said to do more than perceive, hy means of the eye 
and the ear — it perceives directly through them. 
This fact was justly thought, by Lord Kames, to 
attach special importance to eye-pleasures and ear- 
pleasures. They are conceived to be far more 
recreative to the mind, than the pleasures which 
have their rise in the senses of touch, taste, and 
smell. Fair sights and agreeable sounds rouse the 
mind's drowsy faculties, drive from the inner world 
corroding care, hush the plaint of moping discon- 
tent, and assuage the billows of passion. '^ My eyes," 
said Cowper, ^' drink the rivers as they flow." Did 
he not mean, that his soul drank, through his eyes, 
the flowing rivers? Du Bos says, that ''silence 
does not calm an agitated mind ; but that soft and 
slow music has a fine effect." 

Unfortunate, indeed, is he who has never disci- 
plined his eye and his ear to a nice susceptibility. 
How such a person must grovel beneath the skies ! 
He can see how to eat and drink, how to distin- 
guish between spurious coins and true ones, and 
how to estimate the amount of force in a water- 
fall ; but, alas ! he has no eye for the sungilt hills, 
for the green of the grass, or for the rainbow on the 
clouds ! He can hear the din of business, the clink 
of money, and the voices of flatterers; but he has 



The Seasons. 49 



no ear for the melody of the bird or the harp of the 

insect, t] 

cataract. 



insect, the treble of the wind or the bass of the 



IV. 

THE SEASONS. 

Some thoughts, in regard to the seasons of the 
year, should be expected to suggest themselves to 
him who is treating of the higher design and the 
higher pleasures of the senses. 

The "World is continually changing. At one time, 
she appears clothed in soft verdure. At another 
time, we find her clad in the yellow and purple 
remnants of a once glorious vegetation. At still 
another time, she presents herself to the eye, arrayed 
in a vesture of snow. But, in each of her difierent 
styles of dress, she has charms for the senses of 
man. Not many people may see, that, even in mid- 
winter, she is beautiful ; but, if they do not, the 
fault must needs be in themselves. It is natural, I 
know, for one to be unpleasantly afiected by the 
first sight of the blighting frost. The earliest ap- 
pearance of frozen dew assures us, that the gentle 
flowers will soon fade and perish; that the glad 
birds will soon close their musical mouths, and fly 
afar, in quest of warmth, of freshness, and of bloom ; 
that the babbling brooks will soon be covered with 
ice, and be heard murmuring on account of the 
chains of their long wintry bondage ; and that little 
animals will soon be seen trembling in sunny fields 
and farm-yards, and looking as if they would mucti 
rather be dead than alive, in such chilly weather. 

But these unpleasant emotions, at the opening of 



50 A Man. 

the cold season, should be considered in connection 
with others of an entirely different character. Many 
of the aspects of winter, when viewed from the 
serene altitude of philosophy, cannot but appear 
positively charming. Mark, for example, the exqui- 
site beauty of the snow-crystal. The vapor of clouds 
formed at a temperature below thirty-two degrees, 
freezes into bunches or flakes of spotless crystalline 
forms. The crystals which fall, under the same 
conditions, all exhibit a similar configuration. Think 
now, of those gems of symmetry, falling noiselessly 
from the higher regions of the air. "Were it possi- 
ble for the angels to scatter on us particles of their 
food, might not the crumbs of that celestial aliment 
be fitly likened to the snow-crystals of winter? 
How these small crystals are able to preserve their 
form, during all their long descent, and even after 
their arrestment by earthly surfaces, it were not 
easy to tell. But we know, that they do, thus, 
retain their shape. You have observed them, as 
they fell into the hollow of your hand, or into your 
bosom. One glance, it may be, was all the atten- 
tion you gave them ; but, in that single glance, you 
saw a figure which is now treasured among the 
most beautiful images your memory is keeping. 
Then, you cannot but have observed the brightness 
exhibited by these crystals, on clear and chilly morn- 
ings, when the sun touches their inimitable edges 
with his rays, and makes them glitter as nothing 
else in nature can. 

But you say, that winter is cold — very cold. We 
agree with you. Its beauty is cold. There are 
harsh tones in its winds. Its stars tremble, as if 



The Seasons. 51 

from a want of caloric. Its fields of snow, as they 
gleam in the sunlight, soon compel us to long for 
that warm radiance w^hich plays about the front 
grate of the domestic stove. To the most of us, 
summer, of all the seasons, is by far the most agree- 
able. We cannot avoid liking the breeze which 
brings perfumes from bushes of roses, much better 
than tlie stern w^ind which . carries snowdrifts on its 
wings. But do we take no pleasure of the winter ? 
May it never be said, that we do not ! Surely, there 
are hyemal felicities. Thanks let there be, for the 
necessity which, during a part of each year, makes 
the stove laugh every evening, through its grate, 
and renders ^' sweet home" doubly sweet! Thanks, 
also, for the energy which the pitiless north wind 
imparts to a person's body and mind, on the wintry 
day; and for the nameless charm it gives to his 
nightly repose, causing him to gather up his feet 
and become lost in peaceful sleep, as in a heavenly 
trance ! Laboriosus and Hypochondriacus, and such 
as they, shrug their shoulders, in the December 
mornings. Unthankfully, they receive God's gift 
of the great and beautiful winter. But we, of the 
other party, do not do so. To all of us, the cold 
season is a blessing. Let the white, soft snow- 
flakes fall, we say, in their time. Ever will we wel- 
come them, as if they were sent to remind us of the 
purity of the spirits of the blessed. We will endure 
Boreas, with all his Arctic severity. His weird 
cries and moans shall not break our mood of cheer- 
fulness. Most of the time, we will remain, within 
doors, engaged in the noble work of mental cul- 
ture. But, often, we Avill run forth, into the chillv 



52 A Man. 

air. Freely, we will inhale the pure breath of the 
season. Through the drifts we will go. Shod with 
skates, we will move swiftly over the transparent 
and opalescent ice. Thus, v/ill those who belong 
to our party, pass all the winters. 

Y. 

UTILITARIANISM. 

^'^In those vernal seasons of the year," says John 
Milton, '^ when the air is soft and pleasant, it were 
an injury and suUenness against Ifature, not to go 
out and see her riches and partake in her rejoicings, 
with heaven and earth," Wot a few people may 
justly be charged with this 'injury and suUenness" 
against ISTature. To a multitude of persons who, in 
December and January, express a desire for the 
return of May and of June, Spring and Summer 
almost in vain put on their beautiful garments, and 
pour forth their charming music. These persons 
resort to but few, if any, entertainments which tend 
to elevate and refine the mind, while they contri- 
bute to preserve its youthful vivacity. Hence they 
have no springs of goodness in them, overflowing, 
perennially, with manly sympathies. They culti- 
vate, in themselves, more than anything else, those 
low longings which are the basis of an unblessed 
acquisitiveness. They are men — I speak of the 
majority of our men of business; and I say that 
they are men who carry a perpetual old age, in 
their blood and in their limbs. ''ISTature," says 
Thomas Carlyle, ^'when her scorn of a slave is 
divinest, and blazes like the blinding lightning 



Utilitarianism. 53 

against his slavehood, often enough flings him a 
bag of money, silently saying, ' That ! Away ; thy 
doom is that!'" There are persons of this class, 
who seem to look grudgingly on the ground over 
which an unappropriated brooklet must needs mean- 
der ; and who seem ready to recommend to Nature 
an economical reform in her present modes of in- 
vestment, so that she may bestow on cotton planta- 
tions, fields of tobacco, and patches of potatoes, the 
wealth of power she expends in adorning birds, 
insects, and the plants of gardens. ^'A palm tree," 
says Mr. Bayard Taylor, ''is to them a good post 
to shoot a. pigeon from; Dendara is a 'rum old 
concern;' and a crocodile is better than Karnak." 

Then, what bleakness these utilitarians exhibit 
in their faces ! The whole atmosphere about them 
seems to betoken lowery weather. They have no 
cordial smile for you ; no look of genuine geniality. 
They are 

*^ Muffled round with selfish reticence.^^ 

I love pleasant, joyous faces ! Who does not love 
them ? I think there is nothing among all the win- 
ning objects on earth, that is more winning than a 
joyous face — a face which is expressive of a large 
and kindly soul. Such faces ! how they drive one's 
pulses off the sullen creej:^ to the chirping imn! 
How they turn men from human wolves into human 
gazelles ! Why, I would rather meet a face of mel- 
lowed, longing, loving features — what the poet 
Goethe calls a 

" Sweet, heaven-lighted countenance — '' 

on a cold, damp morning, than to receive a small 
5* 



5'4 A Man. 

gift of gold. God bless the man or the woman who 
is prepared to meet everybody with a cordial ''How 
do you do, neighbor? — I am well myself." 

Have yon ever thonght, reader, what a contrast 
there is between a joyous and an nnjoyons face? 
One is like a summer in Palestine : the other is like 
a winter in K^orrland. One affects you, like a 
draught of pure wine : the other affects you like a 
draught of sour beer. 

I hate to meet some men. I declare, sometimes, 
that I will not meet them; and then pass to the 
other side of the road, or get over the fence and go 
'' across lots." "Who would like to meet a man pro- 
fessing to be civilized, and yet having the countenance 
of a barbarian ? Who would not be willing to make 
many steps, out of the way, and even through 
Canada thistles, rather than encounter a face which 
never bears glad testimony to the healthful influences 
of Nature. Said Sir Walter Scott : '' Give me an ho- 
nest laugher ! " And said one of his retainers : '' Sir 
Walter speaks to every man, as if he were his blood 
relation." Such a person ! When he walks in the 
old paths, do they not seem to become new paths ? 
Is not the air about him redolent of his goodness ? 
And does not every fresh sentence he utters, seem 
to make his mother-tongue more rich and dear ? 

Let me hope, that I have not been unjustly severe 
in what I have said, concerning those of our men 
of business, who, as the penalty for losing sight of 
the true end of life, and of the true design of created 
things, have become shriveled, both in soul and in 
body. And let me say, here, that if any one of this 
numerous class should rid himself of the cares of his 



Utilitarianism. 5^ 

occupation so long as to peruse these pages, I wish 
he may specially ohserve the protestation I am, 
now, ready to make, that nothing I have said has 
been ill-meant. Oh, no ! my brother of the farm or 
of the store — thou who hast lost the early sunny 
luster of thine eyes, and the youthful, joyous look 
of thy countenance, and the clear, musical intona- 
tion of thy voice — lost these charms of genuine 
manhood, long ere time has begun to warn thee, 
with gray hairs, of approaching years of senility, 
never, believe me ! never would my pen seek to 
wrong thee. But it would show thee how cruelly 
thou hast wronged thyself. N'ay, it Avould urge thee, 
with kindly entreaty, faithfully to strive, even in 
this day of thy firm habits, to undo those chains 
which have communicated a harsh rust to thy once 
bounding blood! 



56 A Man. 



PAPER III. 

THE STUDENT. 

We owe our word student to the verb tftay^w, in 
the Grreek, the primary signification of which is, to 
strain every effort. It passed into our language, 
through the Latin, undergoing, on the way, a slight 
change in the form of its root. But I assume that, in 
the heart of our noun, much of the force of that old 
Greek verb still lives ; so that, to-day, when you are 
asked to think of the student, you are to think of a 
person who is straining every effort to achieve cer- 
tain intellectual results. 

It is, then, not play, but work, to get an educa- 
tion. Costly was the power of Chilon's son to 
triumph at the Olympic festival; and costly the 
power of Demosthenes to shake Philip's throne. 
Themistocles used to say, that the trophies of Mil- 
tiades would not let him sleep. The words were 
spoken in that period of his life, in which he was 
studying hard how to become a second Miltiades. 
Not sunshine and soft winds alone, give to the oak 
its gnarled and lasting strength. You cannot be- 
come a great man ; you cannot become a hero or a 
scholar, without much work and much patience. 

To study is diligently to search after ideas. In 
its academic sense, it is not a process by which any- 
thing new is brought directly into the world ; but it 



The Student. 57 

is a process by which many things new are brought 
directly into a person's mind. Before you had 
studied this science or that one, it was not for you 
to add to it, by discovery. Before you had studied 
Physiology, it was none of your business to teach 
people the use of the diaphragm. 

So, we learn, at once, that the student proper is 
required, for a time, to have no mind of his own, 
but to be making up his mind from his books and 
his teachers. It is important to see, that this state- 
ment is true. May the young learner be sure to 
mark its truth ! And may it serve to save him from 
the trouble necessarily consequent on too early an 
attempt to teach his teacher, or to write articles for 
the press ! 

He who has been a student, ever has a high ad- 
vantage over him who has been only a thinker, 
Not much should you allow for an idea of God, 
held by a clear-headed Indian who has never heard 
of your Bible. Not much should you allow for a 
theory of the age of this globe, put forth by a genius 
who has never read any other than the Mosaic 
account of the creation. You demand, that he who 
teaches you, shall have been a student himself. Many 
a sad error, now in the world, or that has long been 
in the world and is just ready to leave it, took its 
rise from some process of reasoning, carried to a 
conclusion, on or over some system of truth, into 
which the original reasoner had never inquired. 
If he had, he would not have brought forth that 
error. 

Thus, I teach, that to acquire is, for a certain 
period of time, the proper work of the student. To 



58 A Man. 

this work, he should, in the main, give np himself. 
He should be devoted to study. Ever should he be 
searching after ideas and reasons ; after elementary 
principles ; after the solutions of problems. In this 
work, he should strain every effort. He should 
master the sciences, passing round no obstacle 
which, by perseverance, he can surmount. He 
should travel through history, carefully noting its 
important personages, incidents, events, and epochs. 
He should peruse the literature of past ages, and of 
the present age, taking lasting impressions from 
standard works in authorship. Let it be no great 
matter to him, what specific use he may, in future 
time, have for his elementary knowledge and his 
mental discipline. If possible, he should penetrate 
into all studies. He should gather ideas from what- 
ever sources he can find them. He should seek 
them in books, in men, in animals, in plants, in 
the city, in the circus, in prisons, in mad-houses. I 
protest against any absolute limitation to the terri- 
tory of the student proper. Let him enjoy entire 
freedom for research and acquisition. Let him 
study everything which he has the time and the will 
to study ; — even Mesmerism, even Spiritualism, 
even the Koran, even the creed of Mr. Parker. As 
he is a student, it is, surely, his right to examine 
every side of every subject, just as much as it was 
Galileo's right to prove whether the doctrine of the 
priests and the cardinals was, or was not true, that 
the sun and the stars daily circumvolve the earth. 
Had the same Galileo never claimed the freedom to 
which he was, as a student, entitled, his discovery 
would have been made — who knows when ? I see 



The Student. ^g 

how Shakspeare Avas able, through his humortal 
plays, to touch so many delicate springs in human 
nature, when I see how carefully and deeply Shaks- 
peare had studied human nature. Do you not dis- 
like the limitations prescribed to the students of 
Jesuitic schools ? Be willing, then, that the student 
be free. Say to the bigot : Away from him, with 
thy scornful frown, because he chooses to read so 
many books in Theology. Leave him to himself, 
while he is so well engaged. Thou wouldst not 
permit him to know any other creed than thine. 
Thou wouldst rather see this fine youth in a dun- 
geon, than see him straining every effort to learn the 
difference between doctrines and dogmas, Chris- 
tianity and sectarianism. Thou wouldst have only 
the powers of his cerebellum interested in his faith ; 
and thou wouldst make his heart to be like the 
heart of a cat. And, for all this, thou art, at least, 
an intolerable saint! 

But while no field of inquiry is forbidden to the 
student, still may he be subject to an intelligent 
guidance. There should be a course of disciplinary 
study marked out for him to pursue. Not like 
young Jonathan Swift, at Dublin University, may 
he be permitted to reject the harder tasks set before 
him by his tutor, and choose to amuse himself in 
reading history and the poets. If so, then let him, 
by-and-by, be called a blockhead by his class-fel- 
lows, and let him have to sit more than once for his 
degree, and receive it, at last, . speciali gratia — all 
which transpired in the case of stubborn Master 
Swift. 



6o A Man. 



DISCIPLINE. 

The design of education is to prepare the mind 

for future activities and triumphs. Hence the value 

of the knowledge a person acquires, at a seminary 

or a college, though it may be considerable, is as 

nothing compared with that of the discipline which 

he derives in acquiring it. Education is a process 

of loss as well as of gain. Be a complete student, 

if you will, yet, in time, you must needs forget the 

details of nearly all the lessons you will have recited. 

Our scholastic zeal should tend, in the main, to 

enlarge our minds, and give them receptivity and 

readiness. When a study has helped you to all the 

mental enlargement and discipline it can, then you 

throw it aside. So, you flung away the primers you 

used to read. So, you flung away your first little 

book in Geography, and your first little book in 

Arithmetic. Ah ! how rich would you soon be, 

were all the ideas you have lost, so many dollars, 

and you could easily recover them ! But they are, 

rather, the kernels you have lost from the granary 

of your memory. Those who have been assiduous 

students know the efiect, even of a few days, on 

their garnered crops of intellectual grain. But it 

is the discipline a person needs to retain, not so 

much the details. How much do we all wear out 

and throw aside, in our progress from infancy to 

maturity ! How, by ten thousand little losses, do 

we pay well for the graces of our manly years ! So, 

every skillful boxer must have had to deal out many 



Discipline. 6l 

a blow, long since forgotten, in disciplinary fisti- 
cnfis. "\Yhat polished scholar knows all that he 
has ever learned? Those men of letters who are 
the greatest, are so, not because they have accnmn- 
lated the most learning, but because, by a long and 
careful schooling of their intellectual powers, they 
have gained the highest self-mastery. 

Do not, therefore, look sorrowful, when you see 
that much of what you formerly learned from your 
Algebra and Geometry, your Astronomy and Cal- 
culus, is more dim to-day than it was yesterday ; and 
will, to-morrow, be still nearer the borders of Obli- 
vion. Is it not enough for you to know, that you 
once marched over these mathematical empires, 
surmounting all the obstacles which opposed your 
progress ? In this knowledge, do not forget that 
you have, and will ever have, an evidence of what 
you are, intellectually and potentially. 

This, then, must be said — that the student should 
aspire to something better than mere learning. If 
he does not, his education will, surely, prove a 
failure. Learning, if this were the more excellent 
part of an education, could be acquired without the 
expense of a long course of study at college. It 
could be acquired, in any old building, either in the 
city or in the country, where there is a full library 
of miscellaneous books. But a mere stuffing of the 
mind is no more an education than a miser is a man. 
It would not cost much to fill a young head with 
other men's thoughts; nor would it cost much to 
inflate a bladder with air. But, in either case, what 
would the result be worth to the world ? 

I do not forget, here, that it is not equally facile 
6 



62 A Man. 

to all young men, to gain the advantages of a college. 
Many, if they conclnde to become men, in any sense, 
must needs find it almost impossible to become other 
than what are called self-made men. By such, there 
should be pursued a course of disciplinary study, 
embracing a close observing of men and things, a 
careful perusing of standard works in science and 
in literature, and frequent exercises in vigorous 
analytic and synthetic investigation. May it never 
be forgotten, by this class of students, that the books 
they read should be well chosen. Those ephemeral 
productions which fly round the world, on pinions 
of tinsel, containing more sentences than thoughts, 
should be read as wise men read dandies — that is, 
by looking them through. Certain it is, that no such 
books will hold position in the library of him who 
aims to become a deep and manly scholar ; such a 
scholar as Benjamin Franklin, or such a scholar as 
Hugh Miller. 

n. 

PLEASURES. 

I have spoken of the proper work of the student. 
But how, now, are you left to think of this my 
man who is busy educating his intellect ? Perhaps 
you regard him as only a laborer, applying himself 
wearily to his tasks. N"ot so shall you be allowed 
to think of him longer. Does JSTature ever fail to 
make mental industry, if it is true and successful, 
prolific of exquisite felicities? I protest that she 
does not. During all his long period of assiduous 
effort, she gives to the student sweet compensative 



Pleasures. 63 

inspirations — gives them in a series of beautiful in- 
tellectual reactions. 

There are certain refined pleasures which are ex- 
perienced only by students and thinkers. The expe- 
rience of these pleasures is, usually, a nice secret, 
bosomed in the intellectual being. It is rarely made 
a matter of common conversation. It seems to be 
too elevated and pure, to bear to be associated with 
familiar topics. Yet the number is large, of those 
minds which have, often, been either convulsed by 
its inspiration, or almost overcome by its rapture. 
It were hardly necessarj^ to observe, that these plea- 
sures are not derived immediately from the senses. 
They are too exquisite to be of such an origin. We 
are too passive under the strongest impressions re- 
ceived from the natural world, to be transported by 
them out of the body into the spirit. The beautiful 
rather exhilarates than enraptures the mind ; and 
the sublime never produces a blissful expansion. 
The emotion raised by the former is gay and brisk ; 
that raised by the latter is awful and solemn. 

The occasions of these higher pleasures depend 
on the consciousness of successful intellectual effort. 
They are occasions on which the inner man exults 
over his victories of thought. 

The fact should, however, be remembered, that, 
in the life of the mind, there is a progress, leading 
to that state of develojpment, in which the highest 
of these pleasures are experienced. Pleasure, of 
some kind, seems indispensable to true health and 
growth. In the first period of the mental life — 
that of childhood — a person is content with plea- 
sures of merely a physical origin. Hence, he seeks 



64 A Man. 

playmates among such as are of his own age, and 
sports with them in field and forest. "With rare 
gymnastic exploits, he commands the attention of 
manhood and of old age. He is continually at play, 
when awake — or, at least, he wants to be. His 
sleep, at night, is so disturbed by dreams concern- 
ing the thousand happy incidents of his day-light 
experience, that it were almost a mistake to call it 
sleep. His father and mother advise him not to 
pursue this or that course of pleasure, because they 
have, in their day, seen the folly of it. But he tells 
them, that he wants to see the folly of it too. It were 
well if the lad have not for his father some grim 
Laboriosus, who, as if this were the right way to 
prepare his boy for manhood, scars his young skin 
with whips, in that period of sprightliness and mo- 
bility in which nothing in the world is half so sweet 
to the heart as play. But, though at the cost of 
many smarts from such tyranny, the boy continues 
sportive. He chases butterflies. He makes and 
launches mimic boats. He climbs trees, and looks 
into birds' nests. He frolics with favorite animals. 
He runs, sometimes, away from school. He whistles, 
occasionally, at the words of grave counselors. He 
will be all a boy, even in despite of stern manners 
and the cruel lash. 

So, the highest pleasures which are experienced 
during this early period, are the pleasures of the 
senses. But as years are added to the boy's life, he 
gradually discovers that there is a sweetness to be 
derived from employments less connected with the 
senses than with the higher powers of the mind. 
He arrives at that point of development at which 



Pleasures. 65 

he finds himself in view of the intellectual world. 
He now begins to turn his attention inward on him- 
self, rather than outward on nature. He has per- 
ceived what it is to perceive ; he has thought of 
what it is to think. Ideas have begun to attract his 
mind, in words written and spoken. He prizes books, 
not for their pictures, but because thej^ are vehicles 
of truth and thought. This is the period of life in 
which the pleasures of study engage and enchant 
the mind. 

These pleasures are the chief incitement in edu- 
cation. How slight — slight because entirely tedious 
— would be the mental activity of the student, were 
it impossible for him to experience them ! Is it not 
sadly remarkable, that, in all the standard works on 
the human mind, this species of stimulus to intel- 
lectual effort, if referred to at all, is treated so in- 
adequately ? Its importance will be obvious to you, 
when you consider the truth, that the application 
which is essential to all the higher developments in 
education, would, without it, be utterly unendura- 
ble. "Who would ever struggle through the more 
abstruse branches of mathematics, but for the re- 
warding felicities which make the prosecution of 
these studies so sweetly toilsome ? Who would 
trouble himself to master Philosophy or Chemistry, 
were not the task made much more than pleasant, 
by the ever-enticing charm of novelty ? Let a stu- 
dent, in any field of classified knowledge, fail to 
experience those refined satisfactions which repay 
mental industry, and his ambition will soon go out 
of him. Ah ! who can tell how many young eyes, 
formed to be lighted by exerted and kindled native 
6* E 



66 A Man, 

talent or genius, have been doomed stupidly to fill 
their sockets, in consequence of an untimely appli- 
cation to studies which produced no thrills of en- 
couraging inspiration ? The inference of a natural 
unfitness for success in the pursuit of mathematical 
science, has undoubtedly, in not a few instances, 
been drawn, by a schoolmaster, from indications 
which were really the result of the bewilderment 
and the disgust experienced by his pupil while that 
pupil was engaged on some long train or series of 
tedious abstractions. If you undertake to educate 
an intellect, by taxing it with studies which aiFord 
it no delight, you will, by-and-by, surely find your- 
self trying to instruct a person that shall seem to 
you a dunce. May all teachers of youth bear this 
thought in mind ! May they not be in haste to pro- 
nounce little heads blockheads ! There is often 
enough a case, in which a schoolmaster has vastly 
more of the block in his head, than any pupil that 
ever drowsed in his soporific presence. 

But ever cheerful is he who knows the pleasures 
of study, and has full freedom to prosecute the 
noiseless quest which secures them. With what 
alacrity he pursues the sciences ! "With what glad 
ardor he traverses the peaceful and flowery domain 
of literature ! Dear to him are the names, Archi- 
medes, Euclid, Laplace, and Newton. He receives 
Descartes, Bacon, Locke, Stewart, and Cousin into 
his study, saying in his heart: " Come in, ye meta- 
physical noblemen! and linger with me, here." 
Henceforth, he holds superior company. Learned 
astronomers, pioneer philosophers, famed physiolo- 
gists, geologists, mineralogists, zoologists, concholo- 



Pleasures. 67 

gists, philologists, theologians, jurists, lexicogra- 
phers, and critics have entered his room, and taken 
places round his table. Nor are these all. Illus- 
trious and favorite men of letters are, also, there. 
Homer and Horace are present, to entertain him 
with their noble songs ; Herodotus and Tacitus to 
teach him rich lessons of Grrecian and Roman lore ; 
Shakspeare to captivate him with his unequaled 
wisdom and wit ; Milton to move him with his sub- 
lime imagery and harmonious verse ; Johnson to 
awe him with his serious reflections and august 
rhetoric; Swift to amuse him with his droll sar- 
casm; Charles Lamb to enliven him with his exqui- 
site humor ; Macaulay to attract him with his pun- 
gent antitheses and brilliant climaxes ; De Quincey 
to fascinate him with his opulence of words ; Addi- 
son to please him with his melodious periods; Cole- 
ridge to spiritualize him with his elevated specula- 
tions ; Sydney Smith to delight him with his satiric 
keenness ; Irving to exhilarate him with his liveli- 
ness and elegance; Tennyson to charm him with 
his beautiful strains ; Emerson to invigorate him 
with his nervous epigrams of poetry and of prose. 

Such is the society, in which the zealous student 
is permitted daily to mingle. Such are the plea- 
sures of study. In view of their sweetness and 
their evident superiority to all the pleasures of com- 
mon worldly industry", every young person should 
be considered sadly unfortunate, who possesses no 
taste for intellectual pursuits. '^When I was a 
student," says Carlyle, "1 resolved to make myself 
master of Newton's Principia; and although I had 
not, at that time, knowledge enough of mathema- 



68 A Man. 

tics to make the task other than a Hercules-labor to 
me, yet I read and wrought unceasingly, through 
all obstructions and difficulties, until I had accom- 
plished it; and no Tamerlane conqueror ever felt 
half so happy as I did, when the terrible book lay 
subdued and vanquished before me." 

But it is curious to observe how ITature admo- 
nishes us, to regard all our pleasures as of less im- 
portance than something else. As if, in our mo- 
ments of happiness, we should not forget, that our 
frail barks are to be guided by us, amid ill-seen 
shoals and reefs, in life's changing ocean. All hu- 
man joy is like the music of the spheres. It is 
never to be considered paramount. There is a 
severe constancy, without which happiness is only 
a dream. This constancy, which is of vibration, of 
effort, of progressive movement, we are to keep 
good, though at the cost of what may seem many 
raptures. Hence, it is appropriate to discuss, in 
this place, the dangers to which the very felicities 
of the student expose him. 

ni. 

HEALTH. 

It is possible for the glad lover of books, to be- 
come a victim of his passion. He maybe led fatally 
to overlook the claims of his own physical nature, 
as ^ well as the demands on him of the ordinary 
society of the world. He is tempted to become 
bookish. He has discovered a new world. In this, 
he wishes to live. He is delighted with its pure air, 
its fountains, its flowers, and its great lights. He 



Health. 69 

is fain to mingle and converse, participate and sym- 
pathize, triumph and exult, with its urbane and 
genial inhabitants. He may do this — all this. But 
let him keep himself subject to the restraints of a 
wisely-exercised judgment. He may abandon the 
world of politics, with its medley of ultraism, am- 
bition, and chicanery. He may leave the world of 
fashion, with its follies of sycophantic flattery and 
of prudish affectation. He may retire from the world 
of sordid acquisitiveness, with its exhibitions of 
groveling toil and of miserly gloating. But let him 
be warned, lest he turn his back on that strong and 
indispensable world into which he was born crying, 
and out of which he cannot go without a pang ! 

The student may suffer his books to steal from 
him his health. While taking special care of his 
intellectual nature, he may neglect his human na- 
ture. A young man, in college, is, I think, in need 
of a physician, when he cannot find time to walk, 
at least, as many as four miles a day. This is not 
to say, that a daily and brisk walk of six or eight 
miles would harm him. It is better for a student to 
have to work for the means of his education, while 
he is getting it, as many students do, so that his 
frame may hold its strength, and his blood retain 
its color and pulse, than that while his intellect is 
gaining discipline and knowledge, his body shall be 
dwindling to a skeleton. A sad picture of prema- 
ture decline, would be that of manj^ a youth who 
might, this day, be found, self-incarcerated in some 
upper room, and dreaming among his books, as if 
he were a living tombstone having an epitaph en- 
graved on his face. 



70 A Man. 

It is better to be poor from loss of property, than 
to be poor from loss of liealtb. Man was described 
by one of tlie Grrecian philosophers, as ^' a two-legged 
animal without feathers." May I not describe a 
dyspeptic bookworm, as a two-legged animal without 
feathers, having a frame of bones covered with a 
pale, cold skin ; suffering the room-atism^ almost 
continually ; and passing most of its time in a chair, 
with its spinal column bent badly out of shape ? 
Alas ! for that deluded youth whose passion for 
study is taking the color out of his cheeks, the elas- 
ticity out of his limbs, the music out of his voice, 
and the beauty out of his eyes, and is fitting him 
for an early ride in grim Charon's boat ! There 
should be no such students in any of our schools. 
Among their first scholastic lessons, students should 
learn how important it is to preserve the soundness 
and the vigor of their bodies. They should set a 
guard against whatever may result in an untimely 
undermining of the citadel of the soul. Ever should 
they bear in mind how poor a bargain would be 
made, were all the wealth of the world accepted as 
an equivalent for so much of the flesh which rounds 
off the angles of the limbs, or for so much of the 
energy which lives in the stomach. Consider how 
many a man is now sufiering the penalty of inatten- 
tion to the demands of his physical nature, during 
the period in which he was an enchanted student, 
who, if he possessed the gold of a hundred worlds, 
would freely give it all in exchange for one little 
drop of some rejuvenating elixir which, after many 
years, might restore to him the vitality and the 
bloom of earlier years ! Do you not think that the 



Health. 71 

experience of Robert Pollok, in the close of his 
short life, was often imbittered by the reflection 
that he had suffered his books to steal from him his 
health ? Do you doubt that the gifted Henry Kirke 
White contemplated, at last, with not a little melan- 
choly regret, the fact that he had permitted his 
studies to prepare him for the grave, in the days of 
his opening manhood? He died at twenty-one — 
died because he had applied himself to his studies 
with an application so unremitting — died deeply 
lamented, on account of his virtues and his talents. 
This is the sum of history's record, concerning the 
close of that young man's brief career. But I be- 
lieve that the last days of Kirke White were days 
of mourning in his soul — a mourning inaudible, 
and too great for tears ! — a mourning of the very 
faculties of his fine intellect, in their consciousness 
that all his hopes of earthly usefulness and immor- 
tality were perishing with that faded tabernacle, 
which, had he but guarded it well, might have 
maintained its strength and freshness, during a long 
period of golden and blessed years ! It is by such 
instances as that of PoUok and this of White, that 
we must be taught how deplorable is the fate of a 
student, endowed with superior talents and animated 
by a lofty ambition — a young man too generous 
and noble for such a doom — sinking into the final 
sleep, while his heart is pulsating in life's romantic 
forenoon ! 

There is one true way to get an education, and 
get it safely. It is that way in which the body and 
the mind are exercised harmoniously together. 
Thus, dyspepsia and consumption are precluded, as 



72 A Man. 

results of ititense study. Thus, that necessity is set 
aside, by which genius, it should seem, cannot begin 
a course of thorough discipline, without taking a 
tendency to decline, which will end either in early 
death or in a prematurely enfeebled body. May the 
student deserve to be called a bright-eyed, generous 
youth, who spends part of his time among books 
and teachers, and part of his time walking, climb- 
ing, leaping, and swimming. May he remember 
that sweet hymn to health, found among the frag- 
ments of the Greek poets : 

"- Health, most venerable of the powers of heaven ! 
with thee may the remaining part of my life be 
passed, nor do thou refuse to bless me with thy re- 
sidence. For, whatever there is of beauty or of 
pleasure, in wealth, in descendants, or in sovereign 
command, the highest summit of human enjoy- 
ment, or in those objects of human desire w^hich we 
endeavor to chase into the toils of love ; whatever 
delight, or whatever solace is granted by the celes- 
tials, to soften our fatigues, in thy presence, thou 
parent of happiness, all these joys spread out and 
flourish ; in thy presence blooms the spring of plea- 
sure, and, without thee, no man can be happy." 

A certain young American has laconically ex- 
pressed a truth which every college-student would 
do well to inscribe in capitals, on the wall of his 
study : ^' Intellect in a weak body, is like gold in a 
spent swimmer's pocket." How many bookworms 
there are, at twenty-one, whose bodies appear almost 
as old as do the bodies of some octogenarians ! You 
may say that, after all, it has been proved that the 
average length of life is greater with scholars than 



Health. 73 

with any other class ; and that students, distin- 
guished for scholarship, have lived longer, on the 
average, than those whose standing was low. But 
this furnishes nothing to the student, in favor of a 
neglect of diet, of bathing, and of bodily exercise. 
Of the bookworm who makes a hobby of his chair, 
it may truly be said, that he either dies before he 
has had time to do anything noble, or lives too long 
without doing anything noble. Mr. Beecher says 
that the sponge should go with the Word ; and so it 
should. But it should also go with the text-book. 
A dyspeptic bookworm is worth little more to the 
race, for his learned intellect. We should have 
sound bodies as well as scholarly minds. May it 
never be deemed an unimportant part of a person's 
education, that he learn to play adroitly in the free 
air, to eat right, and to keep himself clean ! " Many 
dishes, many diseases," says an ancient writer. And 
to this, it may properly be added, that fast eaters 
are a class of self-murderers. In walking, in run- 
ning, and in horse-riding, a person has the dust 
blown out of him. 

A distinguished physician says that, when we are 
still, we use five hundred cubic inches of air in a 
minute. If vre walk at the rate of one mile an hour, 
we use eight hundred cubic inches in a minute ; two 
miles an hour, one thousand; three miles an hour, 
one thousand six hundred ; four miles an hour, two 
thousand three hundred. If we run at the rate of 
six miles an hour, we use three thousand cubic 
inches of air in a minute. If we ride a horse, on a 
trot, we use one thousand seven hundred and fifty 
cubic inches in a minute. If we ride a horse, on a 
7 



74 A Man. 

canter, we use, in one minute, five hundred cubic 
inches. 

The exercises of the gymnasium should, I think, 
be made a requirement, and skill in them be held 
as an accomplishment, in all our colleges. In other 
words, there should be established, in each of them, 
a gymnastic professorship. Only let that bodily 
activity which preserves health, be raised to the 
dignity of a regular scholastic duty, and it would 
soon engage the attention of students, as if it were 
itself a study. 

It is well that not all lovers of books overlook the 
value of out-of-door exercise. It is well that the 
word scholar has not yet become suggestive chiefly 
of leanness, of sharpness, and of ghostliness. There 
are many students who daily wear in their faces the 
beautiful evidences of health. They eat long at 
their meals. ''They put," as Emerson says of the 
English, '' a bar of solid sleep between day and 
day." They have some flesh on their limbs, to make 
less dangerous the shock of sudden contact. They 
have, also, warm blood, rubicund cheeks, and a 
sweet breath. While they are fitting themselves to 
be teachers, authors, or orators, they do not lose 
sight of the value of pure air. While they are 
translating Q-reek and Latin, and are sliding to in- 
finity and back on mathematical curves, they do not 
forget to take lessons from the birds, the fishes, and 
the flowers. Though ambitious to win the praise 
due to high scholarship, they do not neglect the 
morning bath, in cold water, which always opens as 
many applauding mouths as a person has pores in 
his skin. 



Health. IS 

At colleges which are located near bodies of 
water, as at Harvard and Yale, in this country, and 
at Cambridge, in England, are found clubs of athle- 
tic and skilled boatmen, who vie with one another 
in exciting and healthful rowing-matches. At those 
colleges which have an inland location, as at Am- 
herst — Alma Mater nobis — ^and at Williams College, 
all but the bookworms are accustomed to exert 
themselves daily in different kinds of sport, adapted 
to keep up the pulse of health in their blood-vessels, 
and preserve the youthful flexibility and strength 
of their muscles. 

It is interesting to observe, in history, the atten- 
tion which the ancient scholars used to pay to the 
subject of health. Few of these were persons who 
might have lived to do immortal things, had they 
but possessed an ordinary amount of pulmonary or 
of gastric power. In the palmy days of the Greek 
language, I will answer for it, that genius was not 
often seen peering through an organism, prema- 
turely enfeebled and shrunk. It dwelt, moved, sung, 
and grew eloquent, in a bodily tabernacle which was 
almost a paradise of health. There lived in its hands 
that heat which woman loves, and which Shaks- 
peare calls 

*' The precedent of pith and livelihood.^' 

I do not believe that physicians had many invalid 
students for patients, in the days of the ''divine 
Plato." Immortal Homer was familiar with gym- 
nastic exercises. You can, perhaps, recall what he 
says, in the Odyssey, concerning the physical powers 



76 A Man. 

of Ulysses. At the entertainment which, was made 
for him by Alcinolis, Ulysses was indignant when 
one of the young performers boastfully told him 
that he could not wrestle. Immediately turning to 
the quoit, he seized it, and beat them all. Then, 
the weary but brave wanderer challenged them to 
compete with him, in boxing and wrestling, and 
found them speechless and ashamed. Pythagoras, 
Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, each enjoyed the high 
health which is aiforded by adequate bodily exer- 
cise, and each taught the value of it to his disciples. 
Almost the last thing Socrates did before his death, 
was to bathe himself. All the most useful scholars, 
of every age, have been persons who, while ^tudents^, 
prized pure air, cold water, and physical sports. 
Our Webster was, in his own way, a sporting man. 
He was fond of the field, of the forest, and of fish- 
catching. Kot much was he like the Andover divi- 
nity student, who, as a writer in the Atlantic Monthly 
tells us, closed his eyes on the beautiful autumnal 
scenery around him, and sought his study with the 
prayer, " Lord, turn thou mine eyes from beholding 
vanity!" It is said, that "Webster once remarked, 
concerning a certain eminent Bostonian who is still 
living, that ^'it v/as a prodigious pity he had no 
single taste whose gratification would take him out 
of his hot-air library into the open air." 

Listen now, thou youth, who art in love with thy 
books ! listen, and be warned ! Thou knowest that 
thou shouldst break the spell which binds thee to 
those books, and which is making thy skin to shrink 
and thy face to fade. As thou prizest length of days, 
as thou admirest an erect and manly form, as thou 



Idealization. 77 

knowest that, in '' this God's world/' thou shouldst 
value rosy flesh, painless digestion, and dreamless 
sleep, I bid thee to break this spell ! Mountains 
are yonder — go thou, sometimes, and climb them ! 
Springs of pure water are bubbling yonder — go 
thou, sometimes, and drink from them ! Three 
hundred and sixty-five beautiful mornings are in 
every year — go forth, and partake of their bracing 
influences ! "What ! art thou willing that thy books 
should become thine executioners ? Art thou at 
rest, while they are drinking up the juices of thy 
young body, and making thee either a pale con- 
sumptive or a lean dyspeptic? If so, then, Mr. 
Book^vorm, shame ever be on thee ! 

IV. 

IDEALIZATION. 

The hint has already been given, that the passion 
for study places a person in familiar relations with 
a society entirely distinct from that of the actual 
world. It is a society of ideals. Its men are ideal 
men ; its women are ideal women. The student is 
indebted, chiefly, to his imagination, for the felici- 
ties which, in this higher society, he is permitted 
daily to experience. By that power, he is made able 
to see a reality in a sign, a hero in a story, a city in 
a sentence. How^ often has a brief description placed 
before you some beautiful being, in human form, 
whose faultless character would be impossible, on 
this uneven and stormy planet, except as an 
ideal ! The book- world has, then, this other name ; 
it is, also, the imagination's world. You who have, 



\ 



78 A Man. 

for liours, b^nt, witli a beguiled and delighted mind, 
over some fascinating novel, and then have gone 
forth into the midst of real life, you know the dif- 
ference which we must ever expect to find between 
conceived and perceived objects ; between ideals 
and actualities. Signs and pictures invariably mis- 
represent, when they stand for material objects or 
for living beings*. At a great distance ofi:', our friends 
seem better than they are ; and our enemies worse, 
perhaps, than they are. ^' Good and bad men," says 
Coleridge, "are each less so than they seem." 
"N"one," says Rochefoucault, "are either so happy 
or so unhappy as they imagine." Rail-roads always 
look well on paper. The speculator In fruit-trees, 
knows the value of a clean book of vivid paintings. 
l^Tot on any emblem or representation of a thing, 
will your imagination let you look as on the thing 
itself You read about the " Swiss Family Robin- 
son," and you think you Vv^ould like to live in the 
top of a huge tree. You peruse Defoe's story of 
Crusoe ; and you almost long to be leading Crusoe's 
life. How difficult, through any words of history, 
to see Napoleon, as he was, in his last delirious 
hours on St. Helena ! How idle a thing, for a hypo- 
chondriac poet to try to make you and me truly 
conceive his feelings, when his heart was breaking, 
or when he had serious thoughts of shooting him- 
self ! Forests, flowers, birds, rivers, the sky, woman, 
genius, war, death — these all must needs seem either 
better or worse than they are, when the mind looks 
on them, through the descriptions of poetry or of 
prose. It is exhilarating to read of heroes, seizing 
on common opportunities and turning them into 



Idealization. 



79 



great and glorious occasions, or struggling, alone, 
to achieve some triumph of invention or of disco- 
very ; but if you would know what heroism really 
is, you must form your idea of it, in some other 
place than your chair. Your ideal general falls to 
the ground, when his horse is shot from under him, 
and as you see him leaping on some other horse, 
and flying again into the hot battle, the whole scene 
seems to you sublime, and you think it easy for just 
such a man to do just such a deed. But suppose 
yourself to be the real rider of those two horses ; 
and I imagine you can easily conceive a few terrible 
circumstances which will materially alter that hand- 
some ideal. You are interested in the account of 
ITapoleon's retreat from Moscow, or from Waterloo ; 
but do you not see that Napoleon himself must have 
found it no agreeable task, to have to skulk, for his 
life's sake, over a strange and rough country ? 

Here, then, is the second great danger, to which 
the student, by his very pleasures, is exjDosed. It is 
the deceptive influence of an over-idealizing imagi- 
nation. To suffer more or less from this kind of 
deceptive influence, is, undoubtedly, the common 
lot of students. Every scholar has his personal 
history of extravagant idealization. He can recall 
some period, in his life, of illusory imaginings and 
misplaced trust. To its very beginnings, he can 
trace back some splendid ideal, in the destruction 
of which, much of his being went to ruin. Most 
vividly, will the beautiful error recur to his thoughts. 
He will see its early progress from a mere concep- 
tion to a charming intellectual form, its constant 
increase in attractiveness, its gradual yet sure occu- 



8o A Man. 

pancy of the mind, its primal access to the world 
of passion, its effect, then, on the will, and its influ- 
ence, afterward, on the speech, the manners, the 
conduct, the life. He will remember how that ideal 
affected his view of all the beautiful objects around 
him. It made the sun shine brighter. It added 
new luster to the stars. It gave the rainbow a fairer 
tinge, and the morning a purer freshness. Last of 
all, he will remember, and, it may be, live over the 
feeling of desolation which pervaded his soul, in 
that hour, when he first saw how completely he had 
been deceived by a brilliant ideal. 

V. 

THE DREAMER. 

It is apt to be the mistake of the student, that, 
for too long a portion of his life, he remains under 
the fascination of books. He may not soon enough 
begin to live from himself. The bookworm is always 
a dreamer. He never is a real thinker. He never 
is a real inventor or a real hero. He is a builder of 
castles in the air. The world in which he lives most, 
is the ideal world. In this, he experiences pleasures 
of an elevated kind. They are much higher than 
those of the senses. They are perhaps superior to 
social pleasures. But he is, by nature, capable of 
pleasures of a kind still higher, the sweetness of 
which he knows not, and little cares to know. This 
charmed lover of books, so long as necessity does 
not force him forth into the whirl of human life, is 
not often, if ever, painfully sad. His intellectual 
experience consists of a succession of delightful 



The Dreamer. 81 

dreams. He could hardly define to you, trouble, 
depression, distress, or anguish. He never has the 
blues. He has no practical word to say, about that 
long trial \Yhich is the inevitable cost of lasting re- 
putation. All the reputation he has gained, or will 
ever trj^ to gain, is simply that of a builder of splen- 
did air-castles. He sees little of living men, and 
hence suffers little from them. He is content to be 
a pale and solitary idealizer — a personification of 
elegant leanness — a human snail that has become 
shrunk in its shell. You point at him the finger of 
ridicule, for thus passing his days as a mere intel- 
lectual voluptuary ; but the doomed bookworm re- 
ceives your derision with all the indifference of an 
intoxicated opium-eater. 

N'ot all, but a large number of bookish idealizers, 
are thus strangers to the actual world. Every stu- 
dent tends to become just such a dreamer, by as 
much as he pursues the pleasures of study for their 
own sake. The young seeker after knowledge 
should ever keep in mind the truth, that the legiti- 
mate object of his employment is to prepare him- 
self for a life of higher pursuits and more noble 
felicities. Else, he can scarcely avoid a fascination, 
under which he will forget what he ought to be do- 
ing, like those companions of Ulysses who, being 
sent by him to make inquiries of the lotus-eaters, 
tasted the delicious flowers and refused to return. 
Some of the saddest mistakes and failures of edu- 
cated men, can be traced to erroneous views of 
human nature and human life, formed when they 
were students, rejoicing in ideal society. They, 
then, failed to see the true difference between the 

F 



82 A Man. 

real world, and the imagination's more beautiful 
world. How many a student lias left his long-loved 
seclusion, and gone forth to build a reputation, with 
the acquisitions he has been storing, and on the 
opportunity which opens befoj*e him, only prepared 
to soon win the name of a wild enthusiast ! "With a 
mind abounding with fanciful ideals, he was entirely 
unfitted for practical life. He was only a refined 
dreamer. He deserved to hear old men call him a 
young radical, fresh from college, whom it would 
do much good, should he go to school awhile to his 
father. 

The bookish adventurer, as he enters the world 
of facts, is, like every enthusiast, an instance of a 
kind of intellectual activity, which, under proper 
restraints, would lead to useful innovation. But, in 
his case, this activity is illusory. He is deceived by 
his imagination. This faculty has impaired his 
reasoning faculty and his judgment. By idealizing 
too much, he has given to a thousand objects a false 
character. Hence, when he enters the atmosphere 
of strong and hearty actualities, he is destined soon 
to receive the treatment due to a brilliant young 
enthusiast. What real humanity is, this visionary 
aspirant will little know ; for he will only have read 
and dreamed of it, not met it in felt contact. There- 
fore, in whatever direction he may apply himself, 
ha will be prepared to leap to erroneous conclusions. 
If he turns his mind to politics, he will propose 
schemes and measures the unpractical character of 
which will make experience and sagacity inquire 
from what asylum of wild men this fine lunatic has 
come. If he devotes himself to science, he will, 



The Dreamer. 83 

perhaps, soon be heard advocating some long aban- 
doned theory, or announcing some discovery of his 
own, in which, in despite of his many words, all 
sound thinkers will see only enough to make them 
whistle at the triumph and sigh at its cost. If he 
chooses the pulpit, he w^ill thence put forth beautiful 
webs of poetry and romance, spun in his dear land 
of dreams; or, what is easier to say, he will be 
found preaching moonshine when he should be 
preaching lightning. The truth, simply told, is, 
that this bright-eyed idealizer must be educated 
over, before he can be worth any practical sum to 
the race. By as many as a hundred strong-headed 
men, the loss of him would not be felt, at all ; and 
humanity, as a whole, could spare him as easily as 
an ostrich could spare any one of its brilliant plumes. 
It is reality, force, heroism, that have weight, in this 
world. But air-castles, fanciful theories, and all 
romantic absurdities — for these men will not barter 
feathers. Learned dreamers are not they who make 
the nation strong. ^'It was very fine," said Robert 
Hall, speaking of a certain ornate and lauded ser- 
mon, ^'but men cannot eat flowers." 

The bookish enthusiast must lose in imagination 
and gain in judgment — must learn to strive and to 
wait — before his knowledge or his works can be 
entitled to genuine respect. This person is over- 
doing, when he seems to be doing well. Before he 
knows it, the object of his ambition has become a 
hobby. Give him a conservative'.s inch, and he will 
take a lunatic's leap. Men, sometimes, trust enthu- 
siasts, but never for a long time. They soon learn 
what the characteristics of all mere idealizers are; 



84 A Man. 

and then, tliey are ready never to trust them more. 
So, when the French party of freedom had disco- 
vered how poor a guide their own patriotic but 
visionary Lamartine was able to be, to sad, brave 
men, resolved on the installation of a republic, they, 
then, were ready to leave Lamartine to his poetic 
illusions. So, Fourier gets an ism fastened to his 
name, making it become the ridiculed synonym of 
every scheme, like his own absurd Community 
System. 

VI. 

THE EECLUSE. 

"When the experience of a bookish student is im- 
bittered by his contact with the stern realities of the 
world, then he becomes a recluse. In this case, as 
in that of the dreamer, the intellect is miseducated. 
The distinction between the two, is the result of a 
diiference in allotment. The former is free to enter 
or not to enter the actual battle of life ; the latter 
enjoys not this freedom. He is forced to leave his 
retirement, and find among men the means of a 
livelihood. Under this compulsion, his idealizing 
habit subjects him to trials, in which his sensibilities 
are continually wounded and torn. Hence, this for- 
lorn lover of solitude owes the misery of his expe- 
rience to an unguarded taste for intellectual lotus- 
eating. We pity the dreamer for his absurdities ; 
but we find him hopeful, even while his mind is 
surveying the fragments of its ruined ideals. Though 
never successful, in practical life, yet, by virtue of 
his buoyant imagination, he is never despondent. 
In the recluse, we, on the contrary, find a sufferer. 
His mind is disordered. It is morbidly sensitive. 



The Recluse. 85 

All that he conceives, all that he remembers, all his 
ideas of symmetry, of goodness, of heroism, are 
unwittingly shaped and colored by him into illu- 
sions. He exorcises what is deceitfully lovely, what 
is corruptly fair. Forms of angelic perfection shine 
and flit in the chambers of his mind. There, beauty 
appears free from defects and from blemishes. There, 
the jarring vibrations of discord are not heard. 
Lovers walk there, whose youthful hopes are des- 
tined, not to be disappointed, but to be fulfilled in 
years of unbroken fruition. Not long, however, is 
he permitted to enjoy these happy views. He is 
compelled to enter the dusty world of hard and 
stubborn facts. He leaves, for a time, his seclusion. 
The scramble of selfish men, after wealth, luxuries, 
and laurels, shocks him. He perceives that human 
beauty is never found perfect. He sees how common 
it is for friendship to be only an appearance, and 
ambition only another name for unholy cupidity ; 
for ^'impiety to be in lawn, and fidelity in fetters.'' 
In their real shapes and colors, those realities which 
give life its dark side, now exhibit themselves ; and 
he looks on crime, remorse, grief, want, vice, cruelty, 
envy, and injustice. His sensitive soul recoils from 
the scene. Like an exotic removed to an austere 
clime, he is no longer happy in the morning light. 
His imagination now deceives him, by exaggerating 
bad things into worse. The smallest imperfections 
are wrought into deformities ; and the most tolerable 
suffering into misery. This habit soon results in a 
deep and settled disease. The person's mind be- 
comes filled with what Atterbury calls '' the imagery 
of a melancholic fancy." He mingles with men only 
8 



86 A Man. 

when lie must. His life is not life ; it is only a gloomy 
existence. 

Long is the catalogue of those who have drooped 
and faded, in consequence of illusory ideals, formed 
in the retirement of study. It includes some of the 
brightest geniuses that have ever rejoiced or sighed 
amid the bloom of the world. In this catalogue 
must be named Petrarch, Cowper, Steele, Keats, 
Tasso, and Collins. Coleridge, after pressing once 
the hand of Keats, whom he had met by accident, 
remarked to the friend with whom he passed on, 
''There is death in that hand!" ISTot long after- 
ward, the young poet, whose gifted spirit had been 
pierced by criticism, was expressing among his last 
words, the sweet, mournful utterance: ''I feel the 
daisies growing over me ! " Collins, it is said, was' 
a finer poet than Milton. But he had not received 
an education like that which equipped the intellect 
of Milton for the smoky and fiery whirl of real life. 
Hence, he spent his last days, moaning in the aisles 
and the cloisters of the Chichester cathedral. Byron, 
who knew what it is to find the actual at war with 
the ideal, in human experience, and who had, him- 
self, often felt the pain of a sensitive nature wounded 
by harsh criticism, left few words more true than 
these : 

Despair and genius are too oft connected.^' 

Whiston said, that he would not have deemed it 
proper to publish his work against ITewton's Chro- 
nology, in Newton's lifetime. He knew the temper 
of the philosopher too well. He should have ex- 



The Recluse. 87 

pected it would kill him, eveu as Locke's Confuta- 
tion of Bishop Stillingfleet's metaphysical specnl lo- 
tions concerning the Trinity, hastened his end. 
'^Authors," said Cumberland, "must not be thin- 
skinned, but shelled like the rhinoceros." May I 
not, in this strong saying, fitly substitute students 
for authors ? 

The discussion of ideals, in their connection with 
love^ would be in harmony with the theme of this 
paper. But the paper is already sufiiciently long. 
The deficiency will, therefore, be supplied by the 
following discussion. 



88 A Man. 



PAPER IV. 

THE INTELLECTUAL SIDE OF LOYE. 

In every great susceptibility, humanity changes 
not ; but Avhat it was, at first, that it no less is, to- 
day. I go back to the primal times, and I find that 
whatever was native to man's heart, then, is native 
to my heart, now. ^' As in water face answereth to 
face, so the heart of man to man." Adam and Eve 
were lovers. Do you think they were so well- 
matched, that they had not lovers' differences ? See 
how much that, to the end of this world, will be 
common to mankind, there is, in those words of 
Moses : '^And Laban had two daughters : the name 
of the elder was Leah, and the name of the younger 
was Rachel. Leah was tender-eyed, but Rachel was 
beautiful and well-favored. And Jacob loved Rachel, 
and said, ' I will serve thee seven years for Rachel, 
thy younger daughter.' And Laban said, ^ It is 
better that I give her to thee, than that I should give 
her to another man: abide with me.' And Jacob 
served seven years for Rachel ; and they seemed to 
him but a few days, for the love he had to her." The 
true hearts of the race all know the feeling which, 
more than three thousand years ago, moved Boaz to 
cause handfuls of gathered grain to be scattered for 
Ruth, the fair gleaner who had, unwittingly, smitten 
him with her beauty. 



The Intellectual Side of Love. 89 

The same feeling is universal. Not even the great 
men and women of the ages, can be considered 
strangers to its mysterious throbbings. Love, as a 
passion, successful or otherwise, has been a mighty 
element, in all social organizations and disruptions, 
from the earliest. Historv does not tell us all thino;s. 
It does not tell us how different, but for beti-othals 
and marriages, had been the civilization of the Jews, 
of Egypt, of India, of Greece, of Rome, of Western 
Europe, of America. Between Adam's day and 
Homer's, between Homer's day and Shakspeare's, 
between Shakspeare's day and Tennyson's, there 
have been lovers who w^ere some of the time wise, 
and some of the time silly. There will be similar 
lovers, always. The poets and the novelists will as 
soon become extinct, as will perish from human 
hearts that passion Vv^hich, with so many delicate 
agonies and raptures, sends the race to destiny in 
pairs. Oh ! shall I tell you, that ten thousand have 
died, who began, in the very days of their youth, to 
pine for an early and unregarded lapse into that 
dreamless sleep which lasts till the morning of the 
resurrection, because their first love — 'Hhat first 
love which comes but once" — was ill-requited? In 
all the world, there are those who have been duped 
by seductive flattery. Their sorrow is constant and 
bitter. By 

'^A long, long weeping not consolable/^ 

the fountains of their tears seem so nearly exhausted, 
that their eyes cannot easily become moist again. 
Be assured, young gentlemen and ladies, that you 
8* 



go A Man. 

ought seasonably and carefully to study that affec- 
tion which is the subject of possibilities so melan- 
choly and deplorable ! Let us reason together. 



IMAaiNATION. 

Solitary idealization, and that alone, will explain 
many instances, in the world, of avowed as well as 
of silent misanthropy. Can you not conceive how 
the young person, especially the young student, who 
has not yet been well taught the necessary imper- 
fection of everything earthly, may be led to form 
such views of human excellence and beauty, as will 
one day be the means of turning him, for a consi- 
derable period of time or for life, into a gloomy 
reclase, morbidly prejudiced against the race ? Cer- 
tainly, no apology is needed for undertaking to 
suggest something in respect to that preparation 
which every young person should make, for the 
days of a passion that may move his heart, he little 
knows when, and that may affect his mind, he 
little knows how. 

Woman was made for man, and man for woman ; 
and the feeling of love which causes the bosoms of 
both to throb in answer to each other, was, indis- 
putably, a part of the Creator's plan. Hence, it is 
found, that no person lives many years, without 
forming such an ideal of human features and traits, 
as gives him a tender and even over-regardful in- 
terest, in that portion of the race, which is to furnish 
him an object of love. He becomes diffident in 
mixed company. He invests fair women with an 



Imagination. 91 

imaginary loveliness. To approach them, is, to him, 
almost as much as to go into the presence of angels. 
Whenever he is with them, he is under the restraint 
of a painful embarrassment. His manners are, then, 
awk^vard ; and his voice unnatural. He deports 
himself, as if it had been his ill-luck to be born 
with features or with limbs, such as will not let him 
be genteel. His eyes are in his wsij ; and he hardly 
knows where to put his hands. He feels, in short, 
as if he were entirely unfitted to commune with 
beings so graceful and lovely, and as if he should 
remain apart from them, till he shall have learned 
how to act and talk as winnmgly as they do. So, 
for a long time, he does remain apart from them. 
But he does not forget them. Their bright faces 
still smile, along the gallery of his mind ; and the 
echoes of their musical voices, still linger in its cham- 
bers. At length, after acquiring many lessons under 
the severe tuition of experience, he will, perhaps, have 
come to regard these flowers of humanity, wdth less 
trembling diffidence ; and with an estimate which 
does not so much overlook the fact, that they are 
apt to be as frail and faulty as they are beautiful. 
Then, he will have become a young gentleman. 
The days of his boyish imaginings will be over. 
He will manifest a measure of self-possession. He 
will exhibit some of that penetration which enables 
a person to read human nature. Possibly, he will 
have been taught how great a difference always 
exists, between an ideal and its correspondent 
reality. 

The history of the practical men of the world, so 
far as their minds and conduct have been influenced 



92 A Man. 

by views of womanly beauty, will be found to be 
entirely in harmony with the foregoing account. 
But when you turn to scholars and authors, you 
will find that only a few of these have, either 
seasonably or adequately, disabused themselves, in 
respect to the romantic dreams of early boyhood. 
The student, by the very necessity which keeps him 
for a long time in retirement, is prevented from 
deriving the full advantage of those associations 
which tend to correct the mind's preconceived views 
of humanity. So, when in his first confusion of bash- 
ful self-distrust, he goes away to hold communion 
with his heau ideal^ the chances may not be many 
of a timely modification of his immature conclu- 
sions. In solitude — that nursery of visionary ideals 
— be may dream overmuch of beauty and of love. 
His future may rise before him, in a bright, un- 
clouded vista of domestic bliss. He may not con- 
template the possibility of disappointment. He may 
not let himself see that Job and his wife, Socrates 
and his Xantippe, Sir Richard Steele and his Prue, 
Milton and his Mary Powell, were but just such 
matches as are always too common in the world. 
The majority of scholars have been unhappy in their 
domestic relations ; but our youth may not consider 
the real secret of their love-troubles and their 
troubles of matrimony. Then, he may have the 
romance-writer to lead him on, in his romantic 
speculations. And is it not, chiefly, for the pleasure 
of our boyish young idealizer, and such as he, that 
this writer paints his fairest pictures of beauty and 
of passionate devotion ? Whom do the Margarets, 
the Lauras, the Rebeccas, and all other pictures of 



Imagination. 93 

sinless female loveliness, tliat have been drawn by 
the pens of poets and of novelists — whom do they 
most delight and charm ? I tell you, it is the yonng 
dreamer among books, who has not yet rubbed 
sufficiently against the hard edges of the world, to 
know the difference between fancies and facts. 
AVhen Thales was in his youth, his mother pressed 
him to marry. ''Jfo," said Thales, ^'I am too 
young." Sometime afterward, she renewed her en- 
treaty; and then Thales said, '^I am too old." In 
that interim of experience, the philosopher had, 
perhaps, met, among the girls of Greece, only the 
daughters of Yanity. ^^It is better," he used to 
say, ''to adorn the mind than the face." Philoso- 
phers are, generally, too old to wed unadorned 
minds. 

Sooner or later, all dreamers who do not die too 
early, are destined to feel the truth, that earth is 
everywhere earth ; and that other truth, that when 
the inspired writer declared men to be lower than 
the angels, he meant to include women, also. If 
the student makes this discovery, not too late, he 
may deserve to be congratulated on having saved 
himself the trouble of suffering, for a few or for 
many years, as the victim of an illusorj^ trust. 
Right early, should he put himself in some way, in 
which he may be most likely to make this discovery. 
Right early, should he learn, that neither things nor 
persons are what they seem, in ideal forms, to be ; 
and that they can be known as they are, only by 
the teachings of stern experience. May he not de- 
ceive himself among his books. May he see the 
* danger of excessively indulging a romantic imagi- 



94 A Man. 

nation. I^ot too distrustfully, should he look on 
earthly objects; but he should look on them, with 
sufficient distrust. He should, at least, learn, that 
all splendid ideals of living humanity are destined 
to be broken to pieces, and to sink in the whirling 
waters of Passion's disturbed sea; and that, in every 
instance since history began, the love of the dreamer 
has ended with that utterance of Solomon's — 
" Vanity of vanities ! " 

n. 

KEASON. 

He that would marry well, should know how to 
'read character well. In this world of adorned faces, 
you should have wise eyes. It is not every bewitch- 
ing countenance that derives its attractions from a 
heart which not even torture could make false. If 
you are reasonable, you will defy fashion, before 
you will marry a delicate lady who flouts at every- 
thing philosophic, and deems herself beautiful 
enough if she is outwardly beautiful. The wife of 
the Vicar of Wakefield thought, that rising too 
early would hurt her daughters' eyes, that working 
after dinner would redden their noses, and that their 
hands were never so white as when they did nothing. 
Goldsmith probably meant, that she should be taken 
as a representative definer of womanly beauty, in 
the fashionable sense. But, in respect to beauty in 
woman, be it your care to consult the thinkers. 
Here are the words of some of them: ^'1 would 
prefer," says Addison, ''a woman that is agreeable 
in my own eye and not deformed in that of the 



Reason. g^ 

worldj to a celebrated beauty." Says Lord Bacon : 
" That is tlie best part of beauty which a picture 
cannot express; no, nor the first sight of the life." 
Says the venerable Fuller: '^ITeither choose all, 
nor not at all, for beauty." Love, without reason, 
was deemed by Bacon unmanly. " Great spirits 
and great business," says he, "do keep out this 
weak passion." 

So, we learn that a person should, in his matri- 
monial choice, be governed, not less by practical 
than by ideal considerations. Do not leave your- 
self to be swayed, overmuch, by the impulses 
awakened by first impressions. There should ever 
be a goodly space, between a fancy and an attach- 
ment — a thrill and a decision. Reason should 
preside at the birth of love ; and reason should 
never abandon this wayward ofispring. Do you 
not see, that passion is born blind? You will 
find that your favorite poets and nearly all great 
poets have written some extravagant and exception- 
able pieces. In respect to these productions, they 
erred, in not allowdng sufficient scope to reason. 
Thus, we may account for those bad passion-poems 
among the gems of Pope ; and for that abnormal 
voluptuousness which clouds the beauties of Alex- 
ander Smith. Bj^ron is reasonable, in " Childe 
Harold" ; is he reasonable in "Don Juan " ? Shaks- 
peare himself is sometimes passionate, without rea- 
son. Does he not appear more manly, in any one 
of his plays, than he does in his "Venus and 
Adonis"? I grew nobler, as I read Currer Bell's 
"Jane Eyre," her "Shirley," her "Villette," and 
her cool, stern story of "The Professor." There 



96 A Man. 

acted a strong reasoning faculty, over the passion 
wliich breathes in those books. Their author ap- 
pears consistent. Her pictures of character and life, 
are generally true to fact. Her style is intense in 
its condensation, and admirable in its elaborateness. 
She has clothed the love of woman, in words which 
will undoubtedly be fresh, for centuries. She is 
brave, as well as sentimental, " She could have 
stood out," says Mr. Bayne, ''under the lightning, 
to trace, with firm pencil, its zigzags of crackling 
fire." If you read her, she will do more than soften 
you with her irresistible pathos; she will impress 
you with her almost sublime severity. And this is 
the gifted woman who teaches you, my dear young 
gentlemen, and you, my dear young ladies, such a 
lesson of lessons, when, in speaking of the class to 
which the vain, selfish, unpractical, beautiful Miss 
Grenevra Fanshawe belonged, she says : ''They seem 
to sour in adversity, like small beer in thunder; the 
man who takes such a woman for his wife, ought 
to be prepared to guarantee her an existence all 
sunshine." 

It is, therefore, evident, that, in love, reason 
should be a constant guide to this blind passion. 
Reason should, often, go a long way before love, as 
its explorer. It should be, silently but resolutely, 
inquisitive, in the intellectual direction, in the 
moral direction, in the physiological direction, and 
in the afFectional direction. It should not be 
content with mere appearances. It should demand 
more than superficial charms. A lover greatly errs, 
when he excludes from the grounds of his final 
decision, the consideration of health. No pair can, 



Reason. 97 

reasonably, be coupled for life, if each has no more 
knowledge of the other, than can be learned in 
fashionable excursions, or at parties, or at the table. 
You see no person, in special acts or particular 
interviews, as that person is, the most of his or her 
lifetime. Who is a hero to his valet ? Intelligent 
reason will not be satisfied with observing the 
action, with hearing the word, with scanning the 
exterior, only in situations in which the person had 
expected these to be scrutinized. It will find a route 
to the person's less affected style of demeanor, and 
more ordinary modes of self-treatment. ''Let me 
know," it will say, " if this one who has made the 
bosom over which I rule to throb, does or does not, 
in the social hour, disguise, somehow, the results 
of long-violated physical laws. Let me have know- 
ledge whether this one has or has not learned the 
value of perfect lungs and a sweet breath. Be it 
mine to know whether the flush of this face is 
hectic, or is only rouge, or is nature's own rosy 
blood revealing itself through the pores of a deli- 
cate skin. May I never consent to a marriage with 
one that is an angel in the parlor, but an invalid in 
the kitchen ! " 

Thus, will intelligent reason be sure to hold back 
the passion of the heart, till its object shall have 
been studied, in its relations to air, water, light, 
food, sleep, and exercise. It will not overlook the 
dependence of happiness on health. It will see the 
inevitableness, where disease is, of an incapacity to 
endure fatigue, of a complaining spirit, of a morbid 
imagination, and of an early loss of young looks. 
9 a 



98 A Man. 



m. 

ASSIMILATION. 

The lover, if he is subject to the guidance of 
reason, will inquire how far there should be like- 
ness, between himself and his object. Certain it is, 
that, to some extent, there is required, to insure 
harmony between the two, a possibility of ready 
assimilation, in respect to disposition and taste. 
Let not one be naturally fastidious, and the other 
naturally lax. Let not one be extravagant, and the 
other parsimonious. Let not one be extremely 
neat, and the other slovenly beyond correction. 
Let not one have a mind that will see nothing but 
a pair of stockings, while the other shall be reading 
aloud to her a lecture on the solar system, or on some 
lofty theme of literature. Let not one be disposed 
to complain because there is too much gay com- 
pany, and the other because there is too little. 

So far as life is to be practical, should not two lovers 
be so adapted to each other, as to be able to spend 
it in perfect concurrence ? Should not their rela- 
tion, in this respect, be, even like that which existed 
between Montaigne and La Boetie — the relation, 
as Montaigne used to say, " of one soul in two 
bodies"? See, now, how rare are the Avedded 
couples whose white hands work always together, 
on the way to destiny ! Li this pair, you find 
estrangement manifest at various points of the j)rac- 
tical; but the inharmony resulting, is occasional, 
not continual. Li this other pair, on the contrary, 
the instances of disagreement are so numerous, that 



Assimilation. 99 

each wishes the union had never been formed, and 
that it could easily be dissolved. Ah ! how many 
such wishes are, each day, expressed, in homes 
occupied by pairs whose nuptials doomed them to a 
life of conflicting preferences ! Do you not know 
an instance here, and an instance there, of two 
lovers, married, the one to tease with the grating 
utterances of an inferior mind, and the other silently 
to weep and suffer ? In your past life, have you not 
sat, for once at least, in the still presence of some 
high-minded, beautiful mother, who, as you could 
see, had, during all the years of her matrimonial 
union , mourned to herself, pouring out tears all 
unseen, it may be, except by the eye of the heavenly 
Father, — in view of the dull, rude, stony-bosomed 
being, to whom she was led to join her rich heart, 
in her youth, before she had learned the true signs 
of a large and loving nature ? Did you not mark 
her almost passionate fondness for the bright- 
browed little one which God had given her, in her 
prime, as if to be a means of repairing her broken 
heart, and making her pale face again to freshen ? 
And, in her yearning look, did you not read the 
words : " Some relief have I found, from the sorrow 
of these years ! After so long a time of misery, 
some true sweetness makes endurable these my 
contemplations and these my dreams. My life shall 
not, through all the days of my womanhood, be like 
the mock-sleep of a night of pain. God has said, let 
there be light for me, and light there is. Before me 
is my beloved. In all the world, there is no one dearer 
to me. Sweet child ! being of my fondest longings, 
my tenderest solicitude ! On thee, will I bestow 



loo A Marie 

tlie affections of my reviving heart. And oh ! shall 
I not know, in the future ^^ears, how to tell thy 
happy footstep from that of him whom I blindly 
espoused, when I was buoyant with the vivacity of 
life's morning? Shall I not know thy voice from 
the voice of him whose vulgar insensibility to all 
that is gentle and noble, has made me wretched, so 
long, so long!" 

Let the inexperienced duly mark those instances, 
in the world, which illustrate the doom of ill-guided 
love. Let them, at an early age, become discoverers 
of character, interpreters of manners and looks, 
translators of the language of taste, of temperament, 
and of disposition. 

I have hinted, that, so far as life is to be practical, 
two lovers should, previous to marriage, be sure, 
that they can so join their wills and their hands, as 
to spend it, in perfect concurrence. I hope you know 
what practical life is. Remember, it has many stub- 
born realities, many trying emergences. Remem- 
ber, there is so much in it, that it will not allow you 
to expect to be, all of the time, merely a lover. You 
should expect to be a worker, an eater of strong food, 
a thinker, a former of plans and projects — perhaps 
a rigid economist. You should, also, expect to be, 
at times, a sufferer — a sufferer from unhappy colli- 
sions with men, from loss of property, from unex- 
pected bereavement, and from sudden disease. 
Think, now, my brisk young gentleman, what a fate 
would be yours, should you be a practical man of 
the world, and should you become sick, and should 
you have for a wife, one who could write poetry or 
novels, but could not attend you with availing min- 



Assimilation. lOl 

istrations. Or, suppose yourself to be a person, 
having a taste for intelligent simplicity, rather than 
for complex adornment and fashionable display ; 
and suppose that your fair spouse should be disposed 
to walk the kitchen-floor shod with silver. Think 
what would, then, be your fate. Imagine yourself, 
my fine young lady, wedded to a man so unlike you 
in taste, that you could never move him to admira- 
tion, with your exquisite music or with your elabo- 
rate paintings ; and who, if you should speak to him 
of the importance of a flower-garden, would be 
ready to exclaim, ''Vanity !" Or, suppose that you 
are a woman of sound sense, and that you should 
marry a dreamer, who should be disposed to commit 
to you all the practical matters. I have read, that 
when Frederick Morel, the writer, was told that his 
wife was at the point of death, he did not throw 
down his pen, but merely remarked : ''I am very 
sorry; she was a good woman." There have been 
many cases like this ; and many, like that of the 
poet Shelley and Miss Westbrook, who, having been 
wedded in a fit of precipitate ardor, w^ent up into 
the Lake district, lived there awhile, and then parted 
for life. These were instances in which the disposi- 
tions and the tastes of the married lovers were, 
undoubtedly, incapable of adequate assimilation. 
Milton's first wife — she who parted from him within 
a month after the nuptial day — was ill-qualified to 
be a help-meet to an author that was destined to 
become blind, and to write the Paradise Lost. 
^' Dante himself" says Carlyle, ''was wedded, but 
it seems not happily. I fancy the rigorous, earnest 
man, with his keen excitabilities, was not altogether 
9^ 



102 A Man. 

easy to make happy." Montaigne^ it appears, did 
not marry to suit himself. ^' Might I/' he says, 
" have had my own will, I would not have married 
"Wisdom herself." You have read of the troubles 
between Sir E. L. Bulwer and his lady ; and be- 
tween Dickens and Lady Dickens. "Would yon not 
say, that these pairs were wedded previous to a 
careful study, by them, of the possibilities of ade- 
quate assimilation in practical life ? — previous to the 
serious ii;quiry : '' Can we harmoniously co-operate, 
during all the years that shall follow the tying of 
this delicate bond ? " 

It has been confidently said, that literary men 
are, generally, unhappy in their marital relations. 
Do you not see why ? You cannot show, that when 
mind is married to mind at the same time that heart 
is married to heart, the union is not insured to be 
blissful. Have there not been men of letters who 
could have written of conjugal fruition, from an 
experience extending through unclouded, beautiful 
years ? You will find, that Sir Walter Scott, in his 
matrimonial life, was happy ; and that South ey lived, 
not only with his first wife, but also with his second, 
in sweet peace. You will find, that Cooper enjoyed 
the matrimonial relation, that Moore was happily 
mated, and that Shelley's second marriage was the 
entrance to a period of joyful domestic experience. 
There is also proof, that Wordsworth was content 
with his wife, that Professor Wilson was well wedded, 
and that Dr. Johnson, who was twenty-one years 
younger than his wife, '^ continued to be under the 
illusions of the wedding-day, till the lady died in 
her sixty-fourth year." It is refreshing to read John 



Assimilation. 1 03 

Foster's own account of his matrimonial felicity. 
/^In tlie greatest number of opinions, feelings, and 
concerns," says lie, ^^ we find ourselves perfectly 
agreed; and when anything occurs on which our 
judgments or dispositions differ, we find we can 
discuss the subject without violating tenderness, or 
in the least losing each other's esteem, even for a 
moment." 

Numa, who, as you well know, was so unlike all 
the other kings of early Rome, since he was a sort 
of poet, holding company, in still retreats, with the 
Muses, had a lovely wife of the name of Tatia. 
"She was partaker," says Plutarch, "of his retire- 
ment, and preferred the calm enjoyment of life with 
her husband in privacy, to the honors and distinc- 
tion in which she might have lived with her father 
at Rome." Plutarch himself was also happy in the 
matrimonial relation. In attestation of the fond 
admiration with which he regarded his wife, he 
named his only daughter after her. Her name was 
Timoxena. In a beautiful epistolary portrait, he 
represents her as being far above the general weak- 
ness and affectation of her sex. She had no passion 
for the expensiveness of dress or the parade of pub- 
lic appearances. She thought every kind of extra- 
vagance blamable. She had an ambition which 
went not beyond the decencies and the proprieties 
of life. 

It is, therefore, untrue, that the marriage vows 
of men of letters are, necessarily, the entrance to a 
life of alienating differences. Undoubtedly, the best 
ideals of matrimonial harmony which can be found 
among all the pictures of fascinating novelists, are 



104 A Man. 

realized in the literary world. "We do not know all 
the happy homes, through the doors of which there 
come, from time to time, manuscripts of thought 
and feeling, which thrill the living race. In right 
matches, books and learning, authorship and fame, 
do no more divide husband and wife, than do beau- 
tiful children, a pleasant journey, a new house all 
paid for, the purchase of a farm, a promotion to 
office, or an increase of salary. If there is a union 
of the hearts, the dispositions, and the tastes of two 
lovers, nothing but successful tyranny or mighty 
death can keep their warm hands apart. Each, for 
the sake of companionship and co-operation with 
the other, will be ready to dare danger, to face ridi- 
cule, to be deaf to gossip, to endure midnight watch- 
ings, -to defy distance, to welcome poverty. How 
great have been the sacrifices which many such 
lovers have made, to insure an unbroken cohabita- 
tion ! How beautifully have passed away the lives 
of wedded pairs, whose marriage in affection was 
contemporaneous with their marriage in disposition 
and in taste ! It is said, that when the wife of Plau- 
tius died, he threw himself on her lifeless bosom, 
and breathed no more. He could not endure exist- 
ence, separated from that help-meet, so devotedly 
loved, so devotedly loving ! Pliny, on the death of 
his wife, said, that ^' study was his only relief." 

The Church speaks, often, of her heroic ministers 
who have dared the perils of barbarism and of dis- 
ease, in foreign mission-fields. Why does she not 
speak, as frequently, of her missionary women — 
those sweet heroines who, by their patience and 
their constancy, made their husbands' hearts doubly 



Assimilation. 1 05 

strong, under the sun of Africa, amid the heathenish 
gloom of India, or on the soil of the pagan islands 
of the seas ? We read of famed historians, painters, 
sculptors, musicians, poets, statesmen, philosophers ; 
but who tells us how far the triumphs of these stars 
of the race, were dependent on the noiseless influ- 
ence of women ? It had been, I have thought, no 
more than justice, if a hundred married authors had 
dedicated their works to their spouses, with tender 
acknowledgments of the aid which, in their scientific 
or literary toils, they received from those gentle and 
noble beings. Dr. Edward Hitchcock, of Amherst 
College, has given, in his '^ Religion of Geology," a 
happy example of this kind. ISTot often is a person 
permitted to read words of prose, more melodious 
and touching, than those which appear in that book, 
in the letter of dedication, entitled, '' To my Beloved 
Wife." "Early," says the distinguished geologist, 
" should I have sunk under the pressure of feeble 
health, nervous despondency, poverty, and blighted 
hopes, had not your sympathies and cheering coun- 
sels sustained me. And during the last thirty years 
of professional labors, how little could I have done 
in the cause of science, had not you, in a great mea- 
sure, relieved me of the cares of a numerous family ! 
Furthermore, while I have described scientific facts 
with the pen only, how much more vividly have they 
been portrayed by your pencil ! .... I know 
that you would forbid this public allusion to your 
labors and sacrifices, did I not send it forth to the 

world before it meets your eye In a 

world where much is said of female deception and 



io6 A Man. 

inconstancy, I deBire to testify that one man, at 
least, has placed implicit confidence in woman, and 
has not been disappointed." 

IV. 

CONTRAST. 

It is a question of no small moment, how far two 
lovers may be unlike, and still maintain, in perfect 
strength, the bond of their attachment. That, in 
all excellent respects, there needs not, nay, that there 
should not be similarity between the one and the 
other, will be evident without any course of elabo- 
rate argumentation. Eve was, surely, never so 
much like Adam, that he could see in her, all his 
own talents. Do you not think he was the more 
delighted in her, because she possessed many beau- 
ties that were not in himself? To this day, the 
happiest marriages have been formed, in some 
manner, on the principle of compensation. ^^ You 
may depend on it," says a certain philosopher, 
" that a slight contrast of character is very material 
to happiness in marriage." "^ Ambition should not 
wish, I think, to wed similar ambition. Genius 
should not wish to wed similar genius. I do not 
like the temper of the wife of Socrates ; but, I ask, 
did not Socrates — such as he was — get on better 
witli that stormy Xantippe, than he would have 
done with some patient saint, who had been as 
much wanting in domestic neatness, as himself? 



*The word matrimony is, in this case, preferable, as it ex- 
presses the state of married persons. The word marriage refers 

r*vfVir>r in nn nri iha-n fr» n ufnfo 



rather to an act than to a state 



Contrast. 1 07 

Had SocrateSj with his disposition, married a good- 
natured slattern, he might have died thinking wo- 
man fit only to be a toy or a menial. Are there not 
many easy, slovenly husbands who would make far 
less trouble, under the domestic roof, if they had 
wives that could occasionally raise a Xantippean 
storm in the kitchen ? But you should hush me, 
here. My object is not to suggest how ill-matched 
pairs may the better do ; I aim to prevent unhappy 
marriages. 

Should there be unlikeness between tvro lovers ? 
Of course, there should. I dare not tell you, in 
how many respects, the one should be the comple- 
ment of the other. But you ought to know, that 
God has given to the true woman a beauty of form, 
which man, how noble soever he may be, cannot 
see in himself. Let us be united in shaming those 
weak lecturers who, overlooking^ the natural difier- 

' CD 

ences between man's organism and woman's organ- 
ism, have aimed, it should seem, to put the tender 
feet of the gentler into the stout boots of the sterner 
sex. May woman never become free to be inured 
and toughened, by out-of-door exposures ! She was 
not made to be rugged. By nature, she is not 
adapted for the agricultural field, the platform, the 
bar-room, the justice's court, the governmental ofiice, 
the intrigues of politics, or the stormy scene of war. 
I cannot think, that she is adapted for the pulpit. 
5?'ature has given her a fitness, neither for the 
harder engagements of actual life, nor for oratory. 
In her very form, do you not read the expression : 
'• Choiceness ! choiceness I *' Man's body has the 
more strength ; woman's the more syrnrnetiw. The 



lo8 A Man. 

one is tlie more angular; the other is the more 
curved and oval. Both are designed to live much 
in the midst of pure air and heaven's own light; 
but the one is, evidently, designed to have more 
muscle and toughness than the other. From the 
earliest times, all the best thinkers of the race have 
agreed, that the two sexes should never become 
generally accustomed to exchange places. And do 
you not see how, like the whistle of the idle wind, 
the prate of the poor female lecturers goes by? 
They cannot make it look right for fine, eloquent 
women, to speak in public. They could not, though 
they should agitate the question, during all this 
millennium, all the next, and ever so many more. 
The highest order of men will never cease to glory 
in the bright destiny of that rib of Adam, which 
was turned into a form whose beauty has made all 
poets rapturous, and caused ten thousand shrinking 
souls to become brave ! 

Have you not observed, with what gallant firm- 
ness, the true men refuse to hold the feminine 
nature, in any other than the nicest regard ? See 
what they insist on as woman's rights ! In every 
vehicle, she shall have the best seat. The gate 
shall be opened for her. She shall be treated 
respectfully in the street. The path shall be made 
clear for her. The crowd shall give way, so that 
she may pass through it, unharmed. If she is seen 
weeping among strangers, pitying eyes shall at once 
be directed to her, and generous hands at once be 
occupied in ministrations for her comfort. No 
wretch may, with impunity, attempt to tarnish her 
fair reputation. Cursed shall be the mouth that 



Contrast. 109 

dares to pour out obscenity, in her reproving pre- 
sence. In the hour of peril and disaster, she shall, 
if possible, be rescued, though the deliverance must 
needs be at the cost of brave blood. Look at all 
that is or that has been called wealth, and tell me 
what has not been held as worthless, in comparison 
with woman. For her, kingdoms have been given 
up as trifles, and fortunes have been cast away like 
the treasures of dreams. Are not all the fine houses 
built for her? Are not the superb vehicles and the 
spans of shining horses for her ? What have you, 
dear married men, that you did not get for your 
spouses ? and what have you that you would not 
give up for them ? So true it is, that woman, in 
all the civilized world, commands a special respect, 
on account of her special charms. And so true it 
is, that the female lecturers, with their silly enthu- 
siasm, will never move the higher class of minds to 
much more than ridicule. 

Turn we, now, to the souls of two lovers, so that 
we may inquire hovv^ far unlikeness or contrast of 
internal character, m.ay contribute to happiness in 
matrimony. I am sure you would agree, that, if 
either is ambitious for distinction, it were better for 
the man to be so. The true ideal of conjugal har- 
mony does not involve similaritj^ between husband 
and wife, in aspiration, in learning, or in fame. 
Have you read those words of the poet Tupper ? 

'* Hath she learning ? It is good, so that modesty go with it. 
Hath she T\dsdom ? It is precious, but beware that thou exceed/* 

There should, at least, be so much unlikeness, that 
10 



110 A Man. 

man may, usually, be the leading actor. Let wo- 
man, with 

*' Her low firm voice and tender government/' 

counsel, persuade, encourage, and inspire her com- 
panion ; let her companion be moulded and guided 
by her influence ; and then let him proceed to action, 
representing the two in his masculine strength and 
courage. His success should include hers. Her 
reputation should be in his name. ''For a man 
indeed,'* says Paul, ''ought not to cover his head, 
forasmuch as he is the image and glory of God ; 
but the woman is the glory of the man." Again 
he says: "But I suffer not a woman to teach nor 
to usurp authority over the man, but to be in 
silence. For Adam was first created, then Eve." 

Little scope could there be for adequate assimila- 
tion of the minds of wedded lovers, unless the right 
one be the head. Li matrimony, you will find that 
suitable likeness of character and suitable contrast 
of character, are, in some manner, mutuall}^ de- 
pendent. Hence, if a person has no passion for 
books, and intends to lead the quiet life of a farmer, 
then let not this person seek to wed a lady of 
literary ambition. If a person is a bright author, 
let him not seek to wed an authoress. If a person 
is highly learned, let him not wish a wife that shall 
be more highly learned. If a person has a strong 
will, let him not desire to many a woman who would 
not give up first, to prevent a quarrel. 

Neither of the two should, however, be really 
inferior to the other. There should be a worth, on 
one side, equivalent, though not entirely similar, 



Contrast ill 

to the worth on the other side. The husband 
should be, in many respects, the counterpart of the 
wife ; the wife, in many respects, the counterpart 
of the husband. Nature has put as much power in 
woman, as in man ; but man's power is the more 
masculine, woman's the more feminine. Tennyson 
tells us, that 

" Man dreams of fame, while woman wakes to love.^' 

Do you not see, that, by as much as the sterner sex 
outstrip the gentler, in the intellectual race, by so 
much the gentler ever outstrip the sterner, in the 
race of feeling ? Do you like to read of the Fer- 
dinands of history, better than of the Isabellas? 
Woman has, evidently, a deeper and richer heart 
than man. This makes her capable of a class of 
mental attainments, peculiarly exalted. No person 
of discrimination will deny, that there are women 
of genius. Indeed, is not the highest species of 
genius, found only in connection with feminine 
characteristics ? " Something feminine," says the 
same philosopher from whom I recentty quoted, 
"is discoverable in the countenances of all men 
of genius." When Milton was at Cambridge, he 
was called the lady of Christ's College. There is 
a manly greatness ; there is, also, a womanly and 
finer greatness. In philosophy, in mathematics, in 
invention, in military skill, in all that requires the 
highest analytic or the highest synthetic power, man 
has excelled and always w^ill. But, in quickness of 
perception, in general intellectual vivacity, in deli- 
cacy, depth, and intensity of feeling, in constancy, 
in that patience which tires not by the bed of the 



112 A Man. * 

sick, in that love which endures privation, fatigue, 
the waste of flesh and bloom, and which conquers 
the fear of death — in these, while man is^ too often, 
but weakness itself, woman is strong, is admirable, 
is sublime ! 

'^Though women," says a writer in the j^orth 
British Review, ''have usually finer spiritual sym- 
pathies than men, they have not the sam.e power of 
concentrating their minds in these alone, and living 
apart in them, for a time, without being disturbed 
by the intrusive superficialities of actual life and 
circumstances." And here, even at the expense of 
incurring criticism, I will, once more, quote from 
Coleridge — a writer who, on such nice questions as 
that now before us, always exhibits peculiar insight. 
''Man," says he, ''seems to have been designed for 
the superior being of the two ; but as things are, I 
think women are, generally, better creatures than 
men." He says, further, that a man with a bad 
heart has been sometimes saved by a strong head ; 
but a corrupt woman is lost forever. 

These writers are true. Six thousand years have 
proved, that there is a natural inaptitude, in woman, 
for great triumphs in metaphysics. She is not so 
successful in the abstract way, as otherwise. You 
can easily puzzle her, with philosophical, mathe- 
matical, or theological questions, till she blushes. 
She arrives at conclusions, with more instinctive 
quickness than man, as if she were able to reach 
them by shorter routes. Shakspeare, in his play 
of the " Two Gentlemen of Yerona," amusingly 
expresses this distinction : — 



Contrast. 113 

Julia, What think' st thou of the gentle Proteus. 

Lucetta. Lord, lord ! to see what folly reigns in us ! 

Julia. How now ! what means this passion at his name ? 

Lucetta, Pardon, dear madam, 't is a passing shame. 
That I, unworthy body as I am, 
Should censure thus on lovely gentlemen. 

Julia, Why not on Proteus, as of all the rest ? 

Lucetta, Then thus — of many good I think him best. 

Julia, Your reason. 

iMcetta, I have no other hut a woman^s reason : 
I think Mm so, because 1 think him so.^' 

Woman's mind has, obviously, less real logical 
ability, than man's; but, for all that, she is dearer 
to the angels, than man is. There is nobleness in 
the nature that can solve hard problems of abstract 
science and discover universal principles ; is there 
not as much nobleness in the nature that can 
endure torture for the sake of affection and fidelity ? 
I have known divinity-students who, because all the 
famed theologians have been men, had concluded 
that woman's soul is inferior to man's. Those 
Christian boys had forgotten the power of their 
mothers ! 

" Lo now, what hearts have men ! they never mount 
As high as woman in her selfless mood.'' 

The internal natures of two lovers may, therefore, 
be, to some extent, in contrast, and still be equally 
worthy. The peculiar power of constanc}^, the fine 
sensibility, the fund inexhaustible of healthy feeling 
— these, on the woman's part, may perfectly answer 
for her want of remarkable analytic and synthetic 
power ; and she may be just as truly a heroine, in her 
way, as her masculine companion may be a hero in 

10* H 



114 A Man. 

his. And, as the two need not be, in all respects, 
similarly endowed, so they need not be, in all re- 
spects, similarly educated. Because you, my young 
gentleman, are a scholar, must you, therefore, seek 
to wed one that has been as highly taught as you, 
in the schools? Do not shut your eyes to that 
which is so much better in woman, than book learn- 
ing. This is desirable, but it is not indispensable. 
Because you belong to a fomily of wealth and style, 
should you, therefore, seek a spouse, only amid 
scenes of affluence and display, of etiquette and 
voluptuousness? Should you pass by this retired 
and retiring jewel of womanly taste, good sense, 
health, and generosity — this diamond of human 
loveliness, giving forth its light in virtuous obscu- 
rity — this being of almost perfect form and features, 
who knows the happiness of genuine life ; who, it 
may be, can neither dance, nor play on the piano, 
nor read French, but who can make a noble mind 
more happy than a seraph could; who wears no 
costly silks and has no gold for you, but who has, 
in her fine, deep nature, a wealth which fashion's 
glittering jewelry and all the treasures of imperial 
opulence could not buy ? If you have a sterling soul 
in you, do not do so ! Remember that the richest 
bosoms are found apart from the society in which 
afiectation imposes its tortures, and in which false 
pride perpetrates its martyrdoms. The resolution 
to wed one that can make a bright show, may cost 
you too much. Your high culture, if it has been 
true, cannot but have made you more desirous of 
simplicity. "'Partial culture," says a suggestive 
writer, ''runs to the ornate; extreme culture to 



Contrast 1 1 5 

simplicity."* Are not those ever the least showy, 
who are the best educated ? The wise scholar has 
the more thought ; the pedantic scholar the more 
ornament. The one is the more simple-hearted; 
the other the more conceited and strained. So, if 
you are wise and manly in your learning, you will 
prefer less glitter with more substance, to more 
glitter with less substance. 

Do not forget the fact, that your books insure to 
you excellent literary company. You will not, 
therefore, desire for a spouse one that can talk to 
you, like those poets and philosophers with whom it 
is your privilege daily to commune in your study. 
Should you wed one that is true and lovely, you 
would not wish her able to write poems or essays 
for the press. 'Not would you sigh, if she should 
not understand your Greek, your Latin, and your 
Hebrew ; or if she should think infinitely more of 
your heart than of deserving to be called a queen 
of the parlor. Whomsoever you choose to wed, you 
must needs find her human and erring. But, surely, 
you would never tire of the riches of loveliness in 
her, if she should be beautiful in nature's own bloom, 
in chastity, in humility, in thoughtfulness, and in 
continued mental improvement. Such a companion, 
though her scholastic acquisitions should be only 
moderate, would make life to you like a blessed 
vision. She could not but possess an ever-increasing 
susceptibility, both for the beautiful in the natural 
world, and for the beautiful in the ideal world. 
Your promotion would be her promotion, your 

* See the article, entitled " Suggestions/^ in the " Atlantic 
Monthly/' for December, 1858. 



ii6 A Man. 

tasks her tasks, your triumphs her triumphs. Little 
could she be to you, like the spouse of Bishop Cow- 
per, who, fearing her husband was impairing his 
health by his literary habits, entered his study, one 
day, and burnt all the notes which he had been for 
eight years preparing. '' Woman," said the patient 
but mis-married scholar, ^' you have put me to eight 
years' study more." 

Few descriptions of a wife of genuine worth are, 
perhaps, better than that which is found in the 
words of King Lemuel, in the Book of Proverbs. 
They are words, let it be observed, with which his 
m.other instructed him : 

** She openeth her mouth with wisdom, and in her tongue is 
the law of kindness. She looketh well to the ways of her house- 
hold, and eateth not the bread of idleness. Her children rise 
up, and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praiseth 
her." 

But it is time that this discussion were concluded. 
Therefore, how abruptly soever the sequel may 
seem to be begun, it must now be made. I doubt 
not, ye careful readers, that you are ready to pro- 
nounce the theme which has been before us, one of 
delicate yet important topics. And you cannot 
have failed to observe, that we have explored only 
one side of this wide field, which, to you and me, is 
ever so interesting. I linger, youthful readers, to 
give you my kind wishes. Happy may you all be, 
in your days of love ! Happy may you be, also, in 
those after-days, in which you will be seen, passing, 
in pairs, on to the end of the great journey ! Oh ! 
may you not, then, have to shed the unavailing 
tears of the ill-wedded ! May not one of you be 



Contrast. 1 1 7 

doomed, by an unhappy matrimonial choice, to take 
on your lips that lament of Madame Le Brun : 
^'How bitterly have I since repented it ! " Remem- 
ber those words of Dacier : " It is in vain for a man 
to be born fortunate, if he be unfortunate in his 
marriage." Let no one of you, unless he is sure 
that he is destined never to find a lover, think to 
live and die single ! " Sickness itself," says one of 
the married, ''is pleasant to a man that is attended 
in it, by one whom he dearly loves." I wish not, 
that, like Vanini, you may believe every hour lost, 
which is not spent in love. But may you prepare, 
rationally, for love's days, then choose an object 
w^orthy of affectionate devotion, then be wedded, 
and then find it so sweet tt) live, that your cherished 
friends — and I when I meet you — will be disposed 
to say, that you were " paired in heaven ! '' 



Ii8 A Man. 



PAPER V. 

THE TIIIXKER. 

You have seen some youth who was just opening 
into those years of life, in which the saying of the 
poet Pope has, in many an instance, seemed too 
true, that ''a little learning is a dangerous thing." 
You observed the exuberance of that young person's 
language, the excessive fertility of his fancy, his un- 
bounded self-trust, his impatient eagerness to try 
the strife of riper years, his lively forecastings of 
the extreme cheapness of human success. 

This boy, you said to yourself, will, by-and-by, 
have become more of a thinker. Less exuberant 
will, then, be his language, and less abundant and 
florid his imagery. His style will indicate a ma- 
turer mind. His words will be somewhere within 
a foot and a half in length. His wit will be more 
keenly significant. He will be less self-confident 
and more self-possessed. Xo longer will he be 
vain of his little stock of learning. He will well 
know how great a difference there is between a per- 
son with a serene and steady head, and a person 
whose head is only a sort of balloon tied to the top 
of his spinal column. 

It is interesting to trace the progress of that in- 
tellectual work by which the mere student is changed 
into the thinker. The subject of this work passes. 



The Thinker. 1 1 9 

gradually, into a new being. His tastes, views, 
habits, recreations, speech, looks, manners — these 
all undergo a process of substitution. Once he was 
bold ; now, he appears modest. Once he was bois- 
terous; now. he appears taciturn. Once he was 
fickle and vain ; now, he appears firm and manly. 
Once his mind was only a consumer: now. it is a 
producer. 

The thinker is not content with mere facts and 
objects, effects and statements. He is inclined to 
search for jjrinciples. purp»oses. causes, laws. Ap- 
pearances do not satisfy him. He seeks inward, 
upward, downward, so that, if possible, he may find 
the substance, the essence. All things seem to him 
to change for the better. The insignificant becomes 
full of meaning: the worthless displays wealth: dull 
things become charming : dead things become living. 
He prizes every moment of time, as worth a thought 
and a thrill. Evervwhere. he is a fijider of reasons. 
He finds them, in the street, in the solitude of the 
forest, among earnest people and among frivolous 
people, in prosperity and in adversity, at festivals 
and at funerals. All day long, his mind grapples 
gladly with its own difficult questions. Thought, 
with its very pain, is s^^eet to him. He loves it 
better than food, than sleep, than gold, than praise. 
It is his refreshment in weariness, his cure in sick- 
ness, his relief in disappointment, his beguilement 
in grieL He is, now, and evermore, a cheerful 
thinker ! 

All the curious things which he meets must sub- 
mit to the ordeal imposed by his inquisitive and 
analyzing powers. The tree must unfold to him its 



120 A Man. 

laws of growth and of reproduction ; the flo^ver 
must tell him some beautiful story of its interior 
life; the little noisome insect which he once brushed 
away, as utterly worthless, must entertain him with 
some account of its interesting career. Happy sur- 
prises animate him in all his w^anderings. 

Small is the bird — too small to claim the atten- 
tion of most people, as it flies through the air or 
hides itself under the foliage, singing here and silent 
there ; in company in this place, and alone in the 
other. "What canst thou, little, gay, slender, fickle 
bird, exhibit, that should occupy and delight, for 
one moment, the thoughts of a man ? Art thou not 
an insignificant thing, in this wide, magnificent 
world? ITot such is the language of the thinker. 
But, in words similar to those w^hich Charles Kings- 
ley supposes the old Squire to have uttered, as he 
read the Hampshire gentleman's book about birds 
and weeds, he is ready to exclaim: '^ Bless me! 
why I have seen that and that a hundred times, and 
never thought till now how wonderful they w^ere ! " 
To him, the bird is a living curiosity, extorting 
great questions. It is curious for its life ; for what 
life is like a bird's ? It is curious for its skill ; for 
what human artist can equal the skill displayed in 
a bird's nest? It is curious for its geographical 
knowledge; for what learned geographer can travel, 
with his map and compass, as unerringly as a bird 
3an, without them ? It is curious for its song ; for 
wheit human warbler can perfectly imitate the song 
of a bird? It is curious, because it migrates, yearly, 
from clime to clime. It is curious, because its 
whole structure is such as to adapt it for flying. 



The Thinker. 121 

Its feathers are curious, its feet are curious, its 
bones are curious, its respiratory apparatus is cu- 
rious. Surely, httle bird, thou art a wonderful 
object to the thinker ! 

But this person does not confine his thought- 
loving faculties to the natural world. He enters, 
also, the intellectual world, as an observer, analyzer, 
discoverer. The whims which, in earlier days, super- 
stition taught him to respect, must, now, suffer a 
withering test. One by one, they are doomed to be 
thrown to the winds. 'No longer does he hear, as 
he used to do, the ticking of a death-watch, in the 
nightly beating of the little jaws of the female ano- 
bium, on the wood-work of a dwelling-house. He 
laughs at fortune-telling and ghost stories, witch- 
craft and necromancy. He doubts where he once 
would have believed; and looks with surprise on 
his former credulity. Facts he does not admit, with- 
out evidence ; theories he does not adopt, without 
discussion. He reasons, sometimes, even against 
science itself At the mercy of his inquiring mind, 
are all the opinions which he has adopted from 
other men. JSTot for the sake either of relation or 
of friend, will he entertain one which he finds unte- 
nable. He is unwilling to be indoctrinated, in reli- 
gious beliefs, by arbitrary teachings. No creed is 
he prepared to accept, before he has subjected it to 
the test of severe thought. The sects must allow 
him perfect freedom of reason, else he will turn his 
back on them all, and go off whistling ! 
11 



122 A Man. 

I. 

CHARACTEE. 

You cannot tell when you first began to think. 
ISTot even that fond and gentle being who rocked 
your cradle, in the days of your helplessness and 
innocence, can tell when you first began to think. 
None but Q-od knows your first thought; and you, 
surely, do not believe you will ever be able to draw 
that secret from the mind of the All-Searcher. 
However, there is this, in respect to the incipiency 
of your mental life, which is certain : when you be- 
gan to think, you began to form character. Charac- 
ter is thought deposited in some manner on the 
sou]. 

Every person, how much soever he may be losing 
from his reputation, is certainly adding to his cha- 
racter. This difiers, in important respects, from 
that. You can pass all the way through life, with- 
out reputation ; but you cannot go so far, without 
character. The one is external, the other internal. 
The two are, in but few instances, harmoniously 
correspondent. A person may think corruptly in 
his heart, and yet may appear well. Another per- 
son may appear very disreputably, and yet may 
mean well. Substance, in the natural world, is not 
more often belied b}^ show, than character, in the 
moral world, is belied by reputation. Joseph had a 
good character; Potiphar's wife had a good reputa- 
tion. The benevolent Samaritan had a good cha- 
racter; the priest and the Levite who passed by on 
the other side, had a good reputation. Charles 



Character. 1 23 

Lamb once observed, concerning a woman whose 
countenance was marked by small-pox, that she 
looked as if the devil had ridden rough-shod over 
her face. But after forming some acquaintance 
with the woman, he said ^'he liked her internals 
well." A poor man may possess a character worth 
infinitely more than the greatest estate; a rich 
man, with a bad character, is deemed poor by the 
highest authority in the universe. Hence, Lazarus, 
in the parable, is represented as going, after death, 
to Abraham's Bosom ; and Dives is represented as 
going, after death, to the doomed place in Hades ! 
The Almighty Q-od never looks at a man's reputa- 
tion to see what he is. He looks at his character. 
In the sight of God, as a man thinketh in his heart, 
so is he. 

Character is durable. It is everlasting ! Lord 
Bacon and many later philosophers teach us, that 
none of our thoughts are ever entirely lost, though 
they may seem to be. You cannot show, that you 
ever forget anything forever. A hundred years 
from to-day, you may think over what you now 
think, just as you may have thought over, yester- 
day, feelings and purposes which you cherished, 
five, ten, twenty, or forty years ago. This state- 
ment is in harmony with those words of the poet 
Ossian : 

*' There comes a voice, that awakes my soul. It is the voice 
of years that are gone ! they roll before me with all their deeds.^' 

All that is either good or bad, in character, ap- 
pears to be resolvable into heart-thoughts. Facul- 
ties are not character. Principles and laws are not 



124 ^ Man. 

character. We form character in the use of our 
faculties, and according to certain principles and 
laws. Character is the result of thought and habits 
of thought, attended by emotions. Our capability 
of thought lies, of course, within the sphere of the 
will. A purpose is a thought harbored in the heart, 
with a determination. ITothing ever becomes a part 
of your character, till it has been an object of choice 
to you. Inseparable, therefore, from the truth, 
that as we think in our hearts, so are we, is the an- 
tecedent truth, that as we will to think in our hearts, 
so are our thoughts. We can direct the trains of 
our thoughts. ''Though we cannot," says Lord 
Kames, ''add to the train an unconnected idea, yet, 
in a measure, we can attend to some ideas, and dis- 
miss others." 

I have said, that character is durable — is ever- 
lasting ! Let me illustrate this truth. 

You have seen those broad and heavy leaves or 
layers, called flagstones, which are used for walks, 
in our cities. These stones were once nothing but 
depositions of soft clay. They were, once, in the 
mud state. But, under the action of various causes, 
they, in time, become hard and firm rock. Your 
Geology, if you have one, will describe to you the 
process. Particles, sediment, indurating influences, 
long time ; then, solid stone strata. Do you not 
see, here, something analogous to the permanence 
of human character? Day by day, we think, and 
''think, and think; we purpose that and that; we 
foster one desire and another ; we acquire habits of 
right thought or of wrong thought; and these 



Character. 1 25 

thronging heart-thoughts constitute the lasting 
layers of our character. 

In youth, the will is, comparatively, weak. The 
boy is easily diverted, easily enlisted. There is 
little strength in him, to withstand powerful temp- 
tation. His father, his mother, his schoolmaster, 
his associates, the books that he reads, readily in- 
cite him to think, either purely or corruptly. It is 
a sad thing to misinstruct a boy ! Vicious influence, 
exerted on a young mind, may, and, in most in- 
stances does, insure to that mind, an ignoble matu- 
rity. We are apt to look, with great lenience, on 
the follies of youth. "We know, that youth has no 
fixed habits of thought; so, we say to ourselves, 
that this erring boy, or young man, will, probably, 
become manlier as he becomes older. But may not 
this be a serious mistake ? Does not your boy, if 
you have one, deposit into character, every one of 
the thousand heart-thoughts which daily pass be- 
fore the eye of his consciousness ? Is it not gene- 
rally true, that as a person thinketh, in his heart, 
while he is young, so he is, in after-life ? Are not 
idleness, corruptness, meanness, in boyhood, usually 
followed by correlative idleness, corruptness, mean- 
ness, in manhood? Do you believe that Caligula 
and iS'ero — those '^ serpents to the Romans" — 
became all that they were, as men, after they had 
passed out of their teens ? Do you not infer, from 
the virtues of our Washington, when he had become 
a man, that he could have had no really vicious 
habits when a boy? Between thirteen and nine- 
teen, vibrates the pendulum of destiny ! 

The bad man, who would reform himself, over- 
11* 



126 A Man. 

comes his old habits of thought, and acquires new 
ones. But his previous thoughts are not lost. Re- 
generation — that change which Jesus announced — 
does not make a man who has sinned recklessly, 
half his lifetime, to be, at once, as firmly virtuous 
and pious, as it does a man who has sinned reck- 
lessly, only a few years. The longer the period in 
which a person has been selfish and corrupt, the 
greater is the amount of evil character that he has 
formed. The convert of to-day, is ready to weep at 
the review of his past life. Your entire history, up 
to this hour, is unchangeable. It is w^ritten on your 
soul. So, on the gray slabs of sandstone, which 
the geologist finds in the Connecticut valley, are 
marks of rain-drops and of birds' feet, made long 
before the IToachian deluge ; and those marks will 
last there, till the heavens shall be dissolved, and 
the elements shall melt with fervent heat ! 

Do you think, that Saul of Tarsus, in his conver- 
sion, lost all the character which he had been form- 
ing, up to the time of that event ? Why, then, did 
he so often revert to his past life with feelings of 
painful and gloomy regret ? Were not all his old 
thoughts still packed away in his soul ; and did not 
his memory, every day, bring specimens of them, 
and show them to him ? how permanent, how 
durable, how ineradicable is character ! A man 
may burn up his property ; he may annihilate his 
reputation; he may, with a suicidal ferocity, tear 
the spirit of life out of his body ; but he cannot obli- 
terate the effect on his soul of any one of the num- 
berless acts which his mind has already performed. 
Something of this efiect is destined to outlast all 



Character. 1 27 

mutations and all transmutations. Something of 
this ejffect necessitates to him a continued power of 
recalling his old feelings and volitions, purposes and 
acts. A iDad man can no more entirely separate his 
character from his soul, than demons can unde- 
monize themselves ! God will forgive a man's sins, 
and will assist him in living a pure and noble life ; 
but he will not make him to be as if he had never 
had his previous experience. Forgiveness of sin, 
and the beginning of a right life, are not reforma- 
tion. The former may be instantaneous ; the latter 
may require years. In the former case, a man adopts 
new principles of thought and conduct ; in the latter 
case, he overcomes old habits. 

Every impure thought which you have ever enter- 
tained, is somehow connected with your nature, and 
will always be liable to reappear to you. The black 
sin of yesterday, or of last year, may be pardoned ; 
but, ages on ages hence, the recollection of it will 
be possible to its perpetrator. 'No good man is able 
to contemplate, with unmixed joy, his past life. 
Look within you, and you will see evil thoughts 
which became yours years ago. "We are apt to sup- 
pose that memory brings to us our previous expe- 
rience, from various outside points. This is a mis- 
take. We remember nothing that is not a part of 
our character. Our former thoughts are all con- 
nected ; and they are, also, connected with our pre- 
sent thoughts. We shall never be, as if they had 
never been in our hearts. 

On this truth, depends that inward experience of 
guilty men, which is called remorse. Who does not 
know something of the bitterness which is insepara- 



128 A Man. 

ble from guilty recollections ? '' "What exile escapes 
himself?" asks a Latin poet, in one of his verses. 
Sin carries the serpent remorse coiled in her bosom. 
Remorse is not always awake. Like all serpents^ 
this one has its seasons of torpidity. Hence, sin is 
permitted to have more or less of pleasure, and 
more or less of serene sleep. But there are hours — 
there must be hours ! in which vicious men, dis- 
guise the fact as they will, are painfully conscious 
of the character of their souls. Memory brings 
back to them, the corrupt associations of the never- 
dying past. To live, as hundreds of people are 
living, is to take the wrong way through life, for a 
little pleasure and much pain. ''A rogue," says 
Coleridge, ''is a round-about fool." All dishonest 
men are in bondage to fear and shame. Judas takes 
the round-about course over the Devil's territory; 
and, one day, is rewarded for an act of treachery, 
with thirtj^ pieces of silver. But, by-and-by, he 
finds that the price of innocent blood, having 
touched his hands, has somehow communicated to 
his soul, a spark of that fire which is reserved for 
all ungodly men ; and then Judas gets a halter and 
hangs himself. The physician who attended Vol- 
taire declared his death to have been terrible indeed, 
and said that the furies of Orestes could give but a 
faint idea of those of Voltaire. Even Richelieu 
flew from his death-bed, exclaiming that the sight 
was too terrible to be sustained. You may have 
read of the remorseful hours of Thomas Paine, when 
he found that he was approaching the borders of 
that '' dark and unknown sea which rolls round all 
the world." His experience, then, was imbittered 



Character. 129 

by his compunctious remembrances. The woman 
who attended him in his sickness, said, that, '^ when- 
ever alone, he kept groaning, day and night, as if 
in great distress of mind." 

There is never a long time, in which the wicked 
man's conscience is permitted to sleep. Something 
will occur, precisely adapted to call up afresh the 
iniquities of the past, however deep the secrecy, or 
however long gone the years, in which those iniqui- 
ties were committed. What great sin or crime was 
ever entirely forgotten, by its perpetrator? Sin 
leaves its enduring effect on the soul ; and because 
the vicious man does not think, to-day, of his evil 
act of yesterday, this is no evidence, that it will not 
come back, and haunt his mind, in many a future 
hour. Do you not know what memory is ? — what 
its laws are ? Go, to-morrow, and commit a wrong 
against helpless innocence, or against your honest 
neighbor; and, even when ten or a score of years, 
shall have elapsed, some trifling circumstance may 
bring that wrong all back, so that the recollection 
will disturb you, as if it were an avenging angel. 
The priest and the Levite, who passed by on the 
other side, were taking the circuitous route of folly. 
Certainly, they were doomed to experience some 
remorse, before death ; and, unless they repented, 
to experience a great remorse, in death; and to 
experience a remorse, I cannot tell you how much 
greater, after death. Would they not have found 
it far less expensive, to have gone right on, even at 
the cost of doing what the good Samaritan did? 
No wicked thought can be annihilated. ^^God shall 
bring every work into judgment, with every secret 

I 



130 A Man. 

thing, whether it be good or whether it be evil.'* 
'^ Every idle word that men shall speak, they shall 
give account thereof, in the day of judgment." 
The human soul, it should seem, is full of cells, 
with trap-doors to them, in which memory hides 
the volitions of to-day, and leaves them to be 
sprung out by the accidents of future experience. 
By the very laws of association, remorse for unfor- 
given sins is made inevitable. The corrupt soul 
cannot but have its guilty remembrances and recol- 
lections. Conscience cannot, by any means, be so 
soundly stupefied, that it will sleep, all of the time. 
Men may fly from the localities of their evil deeds, 
and may alight on the other side of the world ; 
but, "quis exsul se fugitf — what exile escapes 
himself? What vicious man can outstrip his own 
thoughts ? What ITero can live at peace with him- 
self, and die, exhibiting in his countenance, the 
light of a blessed expectancy? Cain was doomed 
to smell Abel's blood, every day after the murder 
in the field. Cain and Judas ! How inseparable 
from the idea of remorse are these hateful names ! 
How inseparable from the same idea, is, also, the 
name of Belshazzar, of Herod, of Pontius Pilate, of 
Pope Alexander the Sixth, of Archbishop William 
Laud of England, of Sir George Jefireys, that brute 
of a Chief Justice to the King's Bench under James 
the Second, and of James the Second himself! 

Probably, the most complete picture which has 
ever been drawn, in illustration of the horrible 
remorse of the vicious soul, as the result of return- 
ing thoughts, is that which Shakspeare has gi^^en, 
in his inimitable play of Macbeth. Having de- 



Character. ^S^ 

scribed, in a vivid manner, the inward wretchedness 
of Macbeth himself, the '^myriad-minded bard" 
proceeds, next, to describe the strange actions of 
the guilty Lady Macbeth. He represents this wo- 
man as keeping, during the absence of her husband, 
a light burning in her room, from evening till morn- 
ing. She has not sufficient courage to sleep in the 
dark. But this is not all. Her dreams are full of 
bitterness and terror. The remembrance of Banquo 
will not let her head lie easy on its pillow. She 
rises in her sleep, takes w^ater, and washes her hands. 
Yes, this delicate somnambulist thinks, that she 
sees spots of- blood on her white hands ; and hence 
she dips them in the water, and wrings them. But 
her ablution proves unavailing. The blood-spots 
will not out ! With a look of despair, the lonely 
woman gazes, for a moment, on those everlasting 
stains. Then, she retraces her steps, saying to her- 
self: ''AH the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten 
this little hand ! " So, Memory always becomes a 
I^emesis to the vicious, using their by-gone thoughts 
as instruments with which to torture them. " The 
good," says Groldsmith, "are joyful and serene, like 
travelers that are going toward home ; the wicked 
but by intervals happy, like travelers that are going 
into exile." 

The foregoing view of character and its dura- 
bility, furnishes ground for the belief in future 
punishment. Death will, obviously, put the soul 
into a new situation ; but there is no evidence for 
the conclusion, that it will destroy character. T^or 
is there any evidence, that it ^s^dll cause an extinc- 
tion of those faculties and laws, by which character 



132 A Man. 

is formed. Memory, in the next life, will still be 
memory; else liow could recognition, there, be pos- 
sible ? Conscience will still be conscience ; else how 
could the difference between right and wrong, there, 
be known ? Death only takes the soul out of the 
body, and introduces it into an untried situation. 
It does not change, at all, the soul's nature or its 
dispositions. He that is unjust, shall be unjust 
still; he that is filthy, shall be filthy still. The 
soul goes forth from the body, with its character 
unchanged. But, in the future life, memory will, 
probably, have a new behavior, corresponding to 
the new state. Possibly, all the thoughts of the 
past will be restored. May we not form some 
notion of the amount of character which will, there, 
be made visible to the eye of consciousness, by con- 
sidering the effect on the mind, of unusual bodily 
states, in this life? There are certain kinds of 
mental excitement, in which it appears that a large 
part, if not all, of a person's previous experience, is 
made to rush with inconceivable rapidity, before 
the inner vision. ITumerous individuals that have 
been rescued from drowning, have testified to the 
truth of this statement. Other testimony has been 
derived from instances of nervous fever. And it is, 
chiefly, in view of undisputed facts, of both these 
classes, that philosophers have deemed the assump- 
tion more than plausible, that '^ no thoughts are 
ever lost, that they continue virtually to exist, and 
that the soul has laws within itself, which, when- 
ever fully brought into action, will be sufficient to 
produce the prompt and perfect restoration of the 



Character. * "^33 

collected acts and feelings of its whole past exist- 
once/' 

" Lulled in the countless chambers of the brain, 
Our thoughts are linked by many a hidden chain. 
Awake but one, and lo, what myriads rise ! 
Each stamps its image as the other flies/' 

So important is the connection between thought 
and character, that it may be well for us briefly to 
retraverse the ground, over which we have come. 
Every thought of the heart, is an addition to char- 
acter. Character is old and is new. The character 
of one man differs from that of another. Each 
person possesses a character which he has formed 
for himself. Your associates, parents, teachers, 
and favorite books, may incite you to think 
purely or corruptly ; but, for all that, as you think 
in your own heart, so are you, and so will you be. 
JSTo one can make you either virtuous or vicious, in 
despite of yourself. The thoughts which you receive 
from other persons, never become yours, till you 
have thought them over, and made them yours. 
So, you can make Moses' thoughts, David's thoughts, 
Solomon's thoughts, Jesus' thoughts, Paul's thoughts 
yours. The author, the preacher, does not think 
for you, so as directly to form any part of your 
character. All of this is formed by the innumerable 
acts of your own will. So, God gives soil, sunshine, 
rain, and seed to the husbandman ; but leaves him 
to be the plower, the sower, the reaper. 

Every individual, be he poor or be he rich, must 
needs carry all the thoughts which he has ever che- 
rished, with him, throughout this life, and into the 
12 



134 A Man. 

next one. Is there not many a character, even in 
the Church, which might be a subject of mournful 
discussion ? To more than one person, the exami- 
nation of his previous life, is always exceedingly 
painful. It is a grief to the good man, to know that 
he was ever a bad man. Such a man is ready to 
say, with tears : " Oh ! how many impure thoughts 
of other days, have become parts of me ! — thoughts 
which burned within me, when I was under the in- 
fluence of unblessed passion, and all the elements 
of my nature were in wild conflict ! — thoughts 
which were harbored in my heart, when I was pro- 
fane, deceitful, unkind ! Ah me ! These will not 
pass away. I shall never be, as if they had never 
been. They may reappear to me, ages on ages 
after the time w^hen men shall say I am dead, and 
shall bury me. If I should go to paradise, I should 
sometimes see them ! If I should become a glori- 
fied saint and mingle with the winged angels, I 
should sometimes see them!" 

II. 

TRAITS. 

The mind has habits which seem to be native. 
These are, often, represented as constitutional traits. 
They are, it is supposed, derived, somehow, from 
parents, as features are. This I conceive to be an 
error. Thought is what gives rise to traits. Cer- 
tain peculiarities of the infant's derived organism, 
may be a preparation, enabling it to think, more 
readily, in one mode than in another. But bodily 
character is not mental character. The mind, so 



Traits. 135 

far as we know, possesses no habits which it has not 
acquired. I^Tever has a person been born with the 
trait of self-control, with a taste for music, or with a 
passion for mathematics. 

When the child has begun to acquire habits, then 
you can cause it to think in such modes as may best 
please you. By continued impressions, you can in- 
sure to the child traits, either lovelj^- or unlovely. 
Do not, I entreat you, allow yourself to be, in any 
instance, foolish with the child. Do not accustom 
its ear to the cant and the silliness of baby-talk ! 
Speak to it, from the first, either wisely or not at 
all. Strive, always, when those little eyes are on 
you, to be mild, and reasonable, and noble. 

It is not necessary, that the child should grow up, 
with a dread of darkness or with a belief in ghosts. 
Do not seek to entertain it with nursery stories 
that will make it afraid to be alone. Do not insure 
to it the trouble of having to unlearn such whims, 
as that of the death-watch, the crowing of the hen, 
or the shoulder over which the new moon is seen 
rising. Cause it to listen, with a fearless joy, to 
the rattling thunder ; and to think, pleasantly, of 
silence, of death, and of the tomb ! 

There are few habits, either of intense fear or of 
whimsical thought, in grown people, that were not 
acquired, in early childhood. Miss Hamilton, in 
her Letters on Education, gives an account of a 
lady, of fine intellectual powers, who, in her in- 
fancy, received an impression of death which 
shocked her.* Always afterward, any circumstance 

* See Upham's Mental Philosophy, Vol. II., Part Third, pp. 
411-416. 



136 A Man. 

pertaining to death, was the cause to her of great 
misery ; and, whenever she was sick, her agony at 
the thought of dying, was indescribable. Lord 
Byron became, somehow, impressed, in early life, 
with the belief that Friday was destined to be to 
him an unlucky day. The impression, never lost its 
power over him. Governor Sullivan, of Massachu- 
setts, could not see a serpent without falling into 
convulsions. The aversion rose from an incident 
which occurred to him, in his boyhood. He, once, 
fell asleep under a tre6 ; and, on awaking, found a 
serpent crawling over him ! Dr. Johnson had seve- 
ral superstitious habits, which were early contracted. 
One was that of '^ going out or in at a door or pas- 
sage," says Boswell, ''by a certain number of steps 
from a certain point, or, at least, so that either his 
right or left foot should constantly make the first 
movement, when he came close to the door or pas- 
sage." He would retrace his steps, if ''he had 
neglected or gone wrong in this sort of magical 
movement." The mother of ITero was a mur- 
deress ; did she not impress many of her evil traits 
on the mind of her son ? It is supposed, with good 
reason, that Byron received his unhappy temper 
from his mother. Montaigne's father caused his 
son to be waked, in the morning, with the sound 
of musical instruments, lest the genius of the boy 
should be injured by his being too suddenly roused. 
"Who knows the effect of the music of those morn- 
ings, on the mind of one of the most vigorous 
essayists that have lived? 

Everything with which the child is concerned, 
tends either to give it some new mode of thought, 



Traits. 137 

or to alter those modes in which it has abeady be- 
gun to think. Hence, its education commences 
very early. 'No great man was, in all his child- 
hood, much more than the objects of his senses 
made him. You cannot show, that Napoleon the 
First was always Napoleonic. The influences, 
rising out of the child's situation, must, for several 
years, give disposition to the child's inner powers. 
Among its educators, must, therefore, be named 
looks, words, acts, the rattle, odors, colors, tastes, 
the pressure of kissing lips, and even the sting of 
the pricking pin. By-and-by, the child will have 
become able to walk alone, and to do things 
which should be sternly forbidden. Then, it will, 
sometimes, need to be educated with the rod. 
Later in life, it will need the instructions and the 
corrections of that higher educator — the schoolmas- 
ter. And later still, it will have become its own 
educator. Then, in various situations and associa- 
ciations, it will acquire new traits ; and will modify 
its old ones. 

Traits are, therefore, always the results of thought. 
National traits are those peculiar habits which the 
minds of a people have, in common. ^'In France," 
said Montesquieu, " I was the friend of everybody ; 
in England, of nobody ; in Italy I had to compli- 
ment every one ; and in Germany, drink every- 
where." The traits of these different nations are 
concerned, it is true, with ancestry, blood, tempera- 
ment, soil, climate, trades, and professions. They 
are, however, acquired habits. Physical relations 
and influences give rise to traits, only because they 
give rise to modes of thought. '*^I incline to the 
12* 



138 A Man. 

belief," says Mr. Emerson, ^'that, as water, lime, 
and sand make mortar, so certain temperaments 
marry well, and, by well-managed contrarieties, de- 
velop as drastic a character as the English.." 

In every person, some traits are in a process of 
decay, others in a process of growth. There is no 
situation, in life, that has not its influences which 
tend to make character either better or worse. You 
know not how much your daily associations affect 
your intellectual tastes. You are made manlier or 
meaner, by your intimacies. A person becomes, in 
many respects, more and more like those with whom 
he chooses or is obliged, continually to mingle. 
Constant intercourse with high society, gives eleva- 
tion and refinement; but, should you become the 
keeper of a saloon or of a bar-room, the power of 
the company to degrade you, would be far greater 
than your power to ennoble them. 

The high schools and the colleges derive no small 
proportion of their inestimable worth, from the rela- 
tion which they sustain to traits. There are authors 
who express a heroic but partial conception of what 
it is to be truly educated. In stirring words — 
such as are used by one author, in a strong and 
earnest essay on '^ Intellectual Character" * — they 
would tell us, that books and colleges are greatly 
valuable, only so far as they tend to fit the young 
man to live rather than to play at life ; to be a man 
rather than " a memory, a word-cistern, a feeble 
prater on illustrious themes, one of the world's 

^ See the seventh number of the Atlantic Monthly. 



Traits. 1 39 

thousand chatterers. ' ' And they would assure us, that 
" no varnish and veneer of scholarship, no command 
of the tricks of logic and rhetoric," can, alone, make 
the mind a positive force in this dusty and tough 
world. They speak well of education, considered 
as a means of '^giving thought the character of 
fact"; and they inform us, that '^activity for an 
object — that activity which constantly increases the 
power of acting, and keeps the mind glad, fresh, 
vigorous, and young — has three deadly enemies — 
intellectual indolence, intellectual conceit, and in- 
tellectual fear." "With the able author of the essay 
to which I refer, they are ready to call these, '^the 
triad of malignants." This class of authors are 
true. But they do not seem to give sufficient atten- 
tion to those amiable and lofty traits, which invari- 
ably result from a careful awakening and training 
of the mind. 

These traits are many. One of them is the love 
of solitude. Become a thinker, and you will become 
a companion to yourself. You will no longer have 
a distaste for seclusion. How many a world-rousing 
book owes its existence to the fact, that its author 
was, at a certain time in his life, unexpectedly 
thrown into the bosom of some Juan Fernandez of 
the literary world, or into the severe solitude of a 
prison ! Co^vper, from long retirement, had acquired 
so great a fondness for nature, that he was hardly 
willing to number among his friends, him who 
should, intentionally, crush an innocent worm. Cer- 
vantes wrote the first part of his Don Quixote, in a 
jail. Locke's great work on the Understanding, 
was composed while he was suiFering — rather let 



140 A Man. 

me say enjoying — concealment in Holland. Through 
more than a hundred years, I go back, and find 
poor Bunyan, in a prison, writing the words : " T 
never had, in all my life, so great an insight into 
the word of Grod, as now." 

Another of these traits is cheerfulness. The hap- 
piest of men, are they who depend the most for 
happiness on inward resources. Such is the reflex 
influence of thought, that he whose theories are 
vicious, may himself be a person of serene integrity. 
Epicurus was better than Epicurism. Hume was not 
such a man, as, from his infidel opinions, many 
would suppose. He was, personally, an illustration 
of the truth of his observation, that ^Hhe pursuits 
of literature possess such a superiority above every 
other occupation, that even he who attains but a 
mediocrity in them, merits the preeminence above 
those that excel the most in the common and vulgar 
professions." Though it should seem, that some 
of his hours must needs have been remorseful, yet 
it is certain that he possessed a soul of genial sym- 
pathies. You would find it hard to prove, that he 
was a man of base vices, of stoic gloom, or of hypo- 
chondriac sourness. Literature would have clasped 
him to her bosom, with an embrace not to be relaxed, 
in all her bright years, had'it been possible for her 
to maintain her honor, in despite of current eccle- 
siasticism. Dr. Adam Smith gives to this cheerful 
skeptic, the pleasing adjectives — ^'charitable, gene- 
rous, urbane." Says Hume of himself : " I was ever 
more disposed to see the favorable than the un- 
favorable side of things — a turn of mind which it 



Traits. 



141 



is more happy to possess, than to be born to an 
estate often thousand a-year." 

Theodore Parker is, also, far better .than some of 
his peculiar views. To his Boston congregation, in 
a letter written on the island of Santa Cruz — that 
'' little quiet and fair-skied island of the Holy Cross" 
— whither he had retired, that he might hide him- 
self from his enemy. Consumption, he, thus, with 
the unction and the sweetness of a poet, speaks from 
a soul, cheerful even in affliction : " Sermons are 
never out of my mind; and when sickness brings on 
me the consciousness that I have naught to do, its 
most painful part, still, by long habit, all things 
will take this form ; and the gorgeous vegetation 
of the Tropics, their fiery skies, so brilliant all the 
day, and star-lit, too, with such exceeding beauty, 
all the night ; the glittering fishes in the market, as 
many-colored as the gardener's show, these Josephs 
of the sea ; the silent pelicans, flying forth at morn- 
ing and back again at night ; the strange, fantastic 
trees; the dry pods rattling their historic bones, all 
day, while the new" bloom comes fragrant out beside, 
a noiseless prophecy; the ducks rejoicing in the 
long-expected rain ; a negro on an ambling pad ; 
the slender-legged, half-naked negro children, in 
the street, playing their languid games, or oftener 
screaming 'neath their mothers' blows, amid black 
swine, hens, and uncounted dogs ; the never-ceasing 
clack of women's tongues, more shrewd than female 
in their shrill violence ; the unceasing, multifarious 
kindness of our hostess ; and, overtowering all, the 
self-sufficient, West-Indian Creole pride, alike con- 
temptuous of toil, and ignorant and impotent of 



142 A Man. 

thouglit — all these common things turn into poetry, 
as I look on or am compelled to hear, and then 
transfigure into sermons^ which come also, spon- 
taneously, by night, and give themselves to me, and, 
even in my sleep, say they are meant for you/' 

Another trait of the educated thinker, is self- 
control. Pie whose mind is well disciplined, finds it 
easy to withstand, when he will, the influence of 
degrading circumstances. On the lowest themes, 
he thinks more purely than other men. "With great 
facility, his mind passes into serene moods of ab- 
straction. ITeither pain nor misfortune is able to 
extort from him, the growl of petulance or the mur- 
mur of dissatisfaction. He is master of himself. 
He is a man ! 

The noblest kings and conquerors have been 
kings in self-government, and conquerors in. thought. 
Under the thoughtful Numa, Rome flourished ; un- 
der his less thoughtful successor, Tullus, she de- 
clined. Augustus Csesar was a man of thought; 
and, while he was emperor, the people prospered. 
But Caligula was a slave to his passions ; and, as a 
consequence, proved a serpent to the Romans. To 
be deeply and serenely thoughtful, is to be devoted 
to the true, the beautiful, and the good. The 
thinker moves, in the walks of society, with an 
exalted and benignant composure. To him, those 
illusoiy bubbles of pleasure, which the votaries of 
fashion, with so great eagerness, pursue, have no 
enchantment. He surveys the restless throng, sweat- 
ing after little fortunes and little honors ; and gives 
them the smile of pity, as they rush along. They 



Traits. 143 

know not that power of liis, by which he easily 
subdues his grosser nature, becomes heroic in self- 
denial, and grand in adversity. He considers their 
character and their situation ; and seeks opportuni- 
ties for communicating to them such instructions 
as will tend to keep down their passions and elevate 
their thoughts. The great orators of the race have 
been educators of the people. Such were Pericles, 
Cicero, Henry, Webster. Such were Pitt, Fox, and 
Burke, 

**the wondrous three, 
"Whose words were sparks of immortality.^^ — Byron. 

These men were not demagogues. They were 
thinkers, instructors. They were not lovers of 
money. They preferred those riches which are un- 
fading and imperishable. Their minds had become 
accustomed to intense exertion and rapturous inspi- 
ration. They had acquired such self-control, that, 
almost at any time, they could dazzle their hearers, 
like the mid-day sun. 'None but thinkers can be 
genuinely eloquent. These only are able to be 
kingly without the help of purple. 

There is nothing great and strong, that is liable 
to freaks of discomposure. It is a long time before 
the storm can make the ocean '^boil like a pot." 
You cannot rouse the passion of an elephant, so 
readily as you can make a lap-dog snap at you. 

There are those who say, that if a person's soul 
is small, by nature, all the education which is possi- 
ble could not make it larger. This is an error. 
Man's soul is not a material entity, so that you can 
say it is small or great, in the same sense as that in 



144 A Man. 

which material objects are known to be small or 
great. It is, rather, a power which man possesses, 
of acting mentally, in various modes, morally in 
various modes, sympathetically in various modes, 
and physically in various modes. Some have, un- 
doubtedly, inherited, by birth, much more of this 
power than others'. But there is no necessary limit 
to the development of any mind. You have ability 
to become strong in memory, strong in imagination, 
strong in reason, strong in speech, strong in feeling, 
and strong in action. It is in the power of every 
sane person to exemplify a noble patience and a lofty 
tranquillity. He may, at least, become well balanced 
in mind, so that he shall be able to bear insult, as 
Jesus did, without rash resistance, and trial without 
fretfulness ; able to be cool in controversy ; able to 
punish conceit and impertinence, if so it be best, 
with masterly silence; able to be earnest without 
being fanatical. The inevitable effect of a proper 
development of the mind, is the superseding of that 
mind's youthful liabilitj^ to excitement and change, 
by a manly immobility. As the work of education 
goes on, the power to withstand distracting influences 
increases. By-and-by, it ripens into a habit. 

All men of extensive culture and well-balanced 
powers, are men of great self-control. They have 
no fits of violent passion. They never write, with 
splenetic vehemence, against aiatagonists. They do 
not return contradiction for contradiction, or rage 
for rage. They are subject to no movings of vulgar 
zeal. Washington w^as a pattern in self-control. 
Isaac Newton was, also, distinguished for this noble 
trait. He was once shocked, as he entered his room, 



Traits. 145 

to find tliere tlie aslies of certain manuscripts of his, 
containing the results of long-continued research 
and experiments. The work of ruin had been ac- 
complished by his pet dog Diamond, which, having 
been accidentally shut in the room, had upset the 
candle on the desk. ^' O Diamond! Diamond!" 
exclaimed the philosopher, with a beating heart, 
''you little know what mischief you have done!" 
That was all ! ITo wild excitement showed its 
lightning in those patient eyes. The loss of the 
papers so affected Newton, as deeply to injure his 
health. M, Biot endeavors to prove, that, for a time, 
it deranged his understanding. But, how great 
soever may have been the effect of the circumstance 
on IsTewton, there is no evidence that Diamond was 
either kicked or cudgeled by him. 

Another eminent person, not less lovely than ad- 
mirable, for his self-control, was Charles Lamb. 
Robert Southey, the poet, had once wounded the 
delicate sensibilities of Lamb, by an act of literary 
injustice. ''Elia" retorted, in a magazine article. 
But, in all that article, you can trace no unholy 
bitterness. A vein of sad resentment runs through 
it — nothing worse. 

Simplicity is another trait of the well-disciplined 
thinker. This person is intent on intrinsic values. 
He looks, directly, in men and things, for what they 
really are. What, he asks, is the import of this 
ornate sentence ? "What is the meaning of this com- 
plex dress and of this affected etiquette ? ISo one 
who has become a lover of intrinsic excellence, can 
be fondly inclined to extrinsic display. It is a beau- 
13 K 



146 A Man. 

tiful sight, that of a rich mind, uttering its thoughts, 
in clear and condensed sentences, as if it were de- 
termined that no gaudy adjective should be allowed 
to flutter its peacock plumage, in the face of the 
bright outcoming idea. 

The student, as he changes, more and more, into 
the thinker, is continually losing in his passion for 
the sho^^y^ and increasing in his desire for the sim- 
ple. Not all who think themselves polite, are truly 
so. There are a thousand persons, whose views of 
what is the most significant of genuine worth, are 
entirely false ; and who, in their love of brilliant 
complexity, have often badly entertained minds of 
the highest order and prospects. 

The well-developed thinker possesses, also, the 
trait of liberality. He is liberal in feeling, and liberal 
in his views. "Who are the most contracted, in their 
affections, their pursuits, and their doctrines ? Do 
they belong to the class of educated thinkers ? 
Surely, they do not. They are those, the range of 
whose minds has ever been limited. A situation in 
life, either ill-chosen or adopted from necessity, ex- 
plains the illiberality and the superstitious conser- 
vatism of many a mind unsymmetrically developed. 
In no age has the number been large of those whose 
education was so thorough, as to deliver them from 
a weak conceit of self, and make them magnanimous. 
Few are the minds that, with liberal views, look 
over the broad world. 

You find many who, having but partially edu- 
cated themselves, are inclined to speak, disparag- 
ingly, of those educational steps which are taken in 



Tfaits* 147 

the high schools and the colleges. They are unable 
to appreciate the beautiful in literature. They re- 
ceive little good of a fine style, of originality, of 
exquisite wit, or of the melody of periods. If author 
A. does not believe just as they do, in theology, or 
in something else, they see nothing specially worthy 
in his productions. You in vain tell them, that an 
education of the highest grade would be the best 
legacy they could bequeath to their sons or their 
daughters. You in vain assure them, that a refined 
literary taste is an excellent ally to religion, in the 
work of self-elevation ; and you are^ by no means, 
able to make them admire any works more than 
their own, or anybody more than themselves. 

There are many ill-educated and erring people, 
whose mistakes it would hardly do for you to cor- 
rect. Their conceit of self is despotic. It will not 
let them see, that they have misfeasoned, misima- 
gined, or misinterpreted. It will not let them see 
how little they have learned, and how much know- 
ledge they might yet acquire. Praise never affects, 
well, this class. A generous and noble mind is 
simply encouraged by praise. It is never inflated. 
Praise is a help to it, enabling it to do better next 
time. But you should be chary of your eulogistic 
innuendoes, if they are to fall on the ears of one of 
those little men, whom you would scarcely dare to 
find in error, lest you should incur such treatment 
from them as poor Gil Bias, in the story, got from 
the self-admiring Archbishop. Of little true liber- 
ality, forsooth, are those conceited mortals who love 
you if you praise them, but hate you if you try to 
correct one of their blunders* '' Seest thou a man," 



148 A Man. 

says the proverb, ^^wise in his own conceit? there is 
more hope of a fool than of him." 

But while genuine liberality excludes conceit of 
self, it not less completely excludes sectarianism and 
bigotry. The educated thinker views the Christian 
Church as a great tree, from the trunk of which 
emanate branches of perennial growth and fruitful- 
ness. The sap which runs in the branches should 
be presumed to be similar to that which runs in the 
heart of the trunk. Sectarianism is not necessary 
to the existence of sects. It rises from an over-eager 
zeal, concerning things of little practical import- 
ance. Sects may be legitimate ; but sectaries can 
never be so. Differences, in respect to doctrines, 
produce sects ; differences, in respect to mere tenets, 
produce sectaries. Secession may be just and need- 
ful ; but who can show that violent secession ever 
is ? "What need is there of prostituting discussion 
into fierce controversy ? "What need of setting rea- 
son aside, to give play to malevolent passion ? What 
need of letting Prejudice enter the soul to hatch 
there her brood of blind impulses ? The existence 
of a variety of sects should tend, on the principle 
of division of labor, to promote religious investiga- 
tion. Angry disputation is what accounts for the 
sectarianism of the ages. Angry disputation it was, 
which introduced that long period of papal domina- 
tion, the dense moral darkness of which was re- 
lieved only by the blaze of martyr-fires. Men are, 
by nature, so constituted, as to differ in respect to 
their creeds. Furthermore, early associations and 
early education, naturally give rise to peculiar pre- 
ferences in faith and practice. It is, therefore, evi- 



Traits. 1 49 

dent, that the members of diflerent sects should 
agree to disagree. While they are unable to adopt 
views in all respects similar, still they should be 
completely harmonious, in aim and in feeling. They 
should love one another ! They should see, that 
old tenets, hugged with a porcupine pertinacity, 
cannot justly be considered pleasing to '' the dear 
God." Christ and Christians ! This, in brief, is 
the analysis of true '^Orthodoxy." IsTow, you can 
tell who of the various sects are to be deemed mem- 
bers of the generic Christian Church. Methodists 
are not Christians, unless the spirit of Christ is in 
them. Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Baptists, 
Episcopalians, are not Christians, unless the spirit 
of Christ is in them. Every genuine convert will 
enter his adopted branch of the Church, with pre- 
cisely this view. ITever will he refuse to acknow- 
ledge, as brethren in Jesus, the genuine members 
of other branches^ ITever will he allow himself to 
cling to his own branch, at the expense of excluding 
from his heart the interest of every other. Never 
v/ill he deserve to be called, by men of liberal 
opinions outside of all the branches, a conceited 
and fanatic sectary, whose soul is too contracted 
to be either reasonable or charitable. 

Another trait of the educated thinker, is humility. 
Are not those who possess the most knowledge and 
culture, ever found to be the most humble ? Consi- 
der the impressive humility of Isaac I^ewton, who, 
in the close of his long life, when his friends were 
expressing their admiration of his works, only said: 
" To myself, I seem to have been as a child playing 
13* 



150 A Man. 

on the sea-shore, while the immense ocean of truth 
lay unexplored before me ! " He that is wanting in 
true humility, should be considered wanting, also, 
in education and thoughtfulness. Officiousness and 
all airs of overweening complacence, indicate small- 
ness of intellectual capacity. The mind which has 
been so developed and informed, that it is accus- 
tomed, without self-admiration, to compare itself 
with the great minds of the past and of the present, 
accustomed to think what hights of truth there are 
that it has never scaled, and what depths of truth 
there are that it has never sounded, accustomed, 
also, to meditate on its own imperfections, weak- 
nesses, and limits — this mind can be in little danger 
of exhibiting either vanity or arrogance. 

I wish to speak of one more trait of the disciplined 
thinker. It is reverence. In this world, it is our fate 
to find impassible bounds. Here and there, our 
powers of analysis and simplification avail us no- 
thing. You can come to no reality, that will not, 
at some point, defy you to know it further. Every- 
thing has its mystery. The surface of the world 
abounds with puzzles. The things we know best, 
are things which we know only in part, 

you look on the luxuriant vegetation, fresh with 
vernal moisture or with the dew of the summer 
morning; and you ask, ^'How do these things 
grow?" You say, that there are certain laws by 
which they are developed from seeds into plants ; 
and then, you ask, '' Whence have these laws their 
force ? " That they have any power of themselves, 
you cannot believe. They are mysterious. You are 



Traits. 151 

sure that you can know them only in part. But you 
are resolved to know them as well as you can. Your 
reason says to you : '' There certainly must be an 
unseen agent, constantly acting in these laws of 
organic life." And here you are content to stop. 
You are satisfied with the comprehensive inference, 
that vegetation is, because God is ; that the one is 
mysterious, because the other is infinite. 

This inference is the only one which can give the 
human reason perfect satisfaction, amid the innu- 
merable mysteries of nature. "We can analyze and 
simplify, to a certain extent ; but we must find limits 
to our processes, at which we shall be most content 
to say, '^ Grod knows the rest ! " 

It is plain, now, why every object, element, and 
law of the material universe, can be known by us 
only in part. Whatever exists must exist myste- 
riously, because it is somehow connected with Grod. 
You will, ultimately, best explain cohesion, repul- 
sion, motion, radiation, combustion, by the gene- 
ralization, that these are what they are, because 
God is what he is. Matter cannot think, cannot 
form plans, cannot say '^ I will." How, then, has 
the sun power to send light to our eyes ? How has 
the earth power to reflect the sunlight to the moon ? 
How has the moon power to reflect the sunlight to 
us, so as to make our evenings radiant and beauti- 
ful ? How has the globule of condensed vapor, as 
it drops from the cloud, power to separate the sun- 
light into the seven colors of the rainbow ? How 
has the mist -of the air power to become flakes of 
snow-crystals ? How have the grass and the clover 
power to become green, so that when we look on 



152 A Man. 

the sodded fields, tliey appear as if overspread with 
soft carpets woven in some stupendous loom ? How 
has the rose power to put forth its ruby blossom ? 
How has water power to freeze into transparent ice ? 
How has the charcoal power to crystallize into the 
diamond, the jewel of wealth and of royalty? How 
has the magnet power to perform its feats in attrac- 
tion ; and how has electricity power to travel with 
so great speed along copper wires ? To all these 
questions, the last and most satisfying answer is, 
that God is everywhere, causing all things to be, in 
some manner, mysterious, like himself. The Atheist 
admits, that Newton's deduction, in respect to gra- 
vity, explains, admirablj^, the harmony of the solar 
system. Why does he not admit, that the deduction 
of an infinite and omnipresent Deity explains, per- 
fectly, the whole creation, including gravity itself ? 

But consider, also, the mysteries of mathematics. 
It is true, that there are principles of numbers and 
of geometry, which will exist forever. Such is the 
truth, that the three angles of a triangle are toge- 
ther equal to two right angles. Such is the truth, 
that the square described on the hypothenuse of a 
right-angled triangle, is equal to the sum of the 
squares described on the two other sides. Such is 
the law of the Binomial Theorem. Such is the 
principle of Logarithms. Such is the relation 
which a cylinder sustains to its inscribed sphere. 
And such is the generalization, that any quantity, 
as a, raised to a power denoted by a cypher, as a^, 
is equal to unity. These mathematical truths are 
everlasting. But who knows how they exist ? Can 
you show, that they depend on anything else, so 



Traits. ^53 

mucli as on Grod? There is, also, the truth, that 
space exists, and the truth that duration exists. 
But what is the basis either of space or of duration ? 
You may say, that these realities exist, in the nature 
of things ; but might you not better say, that they 
exist, because God exists ? You cannot comprehend 
boundless extent, because you are man. You can- 
not comprehend eternal duration, because you are 
not God. Surely, you can know these things only 
in part — space by fragments of space, duration by 
fragments of duration. 

Again ; we find mysteries, in the domain of astro- 
nomy. Certain it is, that we can know but little 
concerning the planets, the satellites, and the suns 
of the sky. "We are separated from them. We see 
most of them only as twinkling points. The astro- 
nomical body, nearest our globe, is the moon ; and 
little, indeed, can we claim to know of that. We 
have never made it a visit. "We say, that it has 
mountains and valleys, caves and jagged craters, 
because, with the telescope, we trace appearances 
on its surface, which we cannot better explain. We 
know, that it moves round the planet on which we 
dw^ell. We are certain, that it turns on its axis ; 
and that its days and nights are each fifteen times 
longer than our own. But we are two hundred and 
forty thousand miles distant from the moon ; and, 
therefore, we can know it only in part. Men are 
not, often, permitted to go beyond our atmosphere, 
and come back again. We have no traditions, no 
revelation, concerning either vegetable or animal 
life, on the other worlds. The most that we know 
about those worlds is, that they exist, that they be- 



154 A Man. 

long to the solar system, that they are subject to 
gravity and to Kepler's three laws of the planetary 
motions, that they have their days and nights, that 
some of them have several moons, that they move 
in elliptical orbits, and that all of them reflect to us 
the light of the same sun. 

ITot less mysterious to us are the comets, many 
of which, as they come forth from the unknown 
regions of space, sweep with great speed and bril- 
liance, round their powerful center. We cannot 
tell, of what material these eccentric wanderers are 
made. We call them comets, from the Greek word 
xoixYi^ which signifies hair, We say, that they consist 
of a nucleus, a hair-like envelop, and a tail. This, 
with a little more, is all that we know concerning 
the comets. 

The fixed stars are, also, to be classed among 
those fine secrets of space, which send to us, in 
their rays, no hint in respect either to their nature 
or to their design. We walk, almost nightly, under 
gleaming orbs, compared with which, we suppose 
our own globe to be but a speck ; and yet, our globe 
appears large to us. It cannot be circumnavigated 
in much less than three years. It has wonders on 
its surface, which but few men have seen. It has 
fruitful lands whose atmosphere but few men have 
inhaled. It has vast caves whose walls have echoed 
the voices of only a few travelers. It has cataracts 
whose thunders have shaken only a few beholders. 
It has a fiery heart which no man has visited. We 
know our globe only in part ! 

Let us reflect, also, on the mysteries of animal 
life. Do we know the basis of instinct ? Can we 



Traits. 1 55 

explain how tiie bird is impressed, when and where 
to make its yearly migration ? How has the eagle 
the curious art of teaching its young the use of 
wings ? How has the honey-bee the mathematical 
principles, according to which it builds its beautiful 
comb ? What is that, in the head of the fly, looking 
through those unnumbered eyes which are seen with 
the microscope ; and looking so keenly, that, with 
all your slyness, you can hardly put your hand on 
the little fellow's back ? How knows the spider to 
weave the web, in which it insnares the insect w^hose 
blood it longs to drink? Wlience have the ants 
their art of forming communities and of building 
subterranean cities ? "What is the secret of the 
transfiguration of the dull grub, into a being with 
flecked and brilliant wings ? The best comment you 
can make on any one of these mysteries is, that it 
is what it is, because God is God ! 

Turning, now, to our own complex being, we 
shall find proofs, not less striking, that everything 
is mysterious, and that the supernatural is in all 
mystery. You cannot tell how it is that your heart 
beats, or how it is that your mind thinks. You 
know that you have a soul ; but you do not know 
its substance. You cannot explain the connection 
between your mental nature and your physical. At 
more than a myriad of points, you are mysterious 
to yourself. Can you perfectly explain sight, hear- 
ing, touch, taste, or smell ? Do you know how your 
volitions are telegraphed along your nerves to your 
muscles? Can you explain how it is, that when 
you.r brain has become fatigued, a little brisk exercise, 
in the free air, or a little lively converse with genial 



156 A Man. 

friends, will completely restore to the cerebral organ 
its lost vigor? Can you explain the whole philoso- 
phy of memory? Can you account for the pheno- 
mena of Mesmerism ? Can you account for sleep ? 
ISTight by night, you experience a change, as won- 
derful as that of death itself. You place your head 
on your pillow. You close your eyes. Your nerves 
become calm. Your heart beats pleasantly. A sen- 
sation of painless repose gradually possesses you ; 
and, thus, you sink into a state of mysterious self- 
forgetfulness. Sometimes, you are not completely 
in this state ; and then, you dream. You awake, 
by-and-by, and are able to recall the thoughts and 
the images which show the unsoundness of your 
slumber. The philosopher endeavors to explain the 
phenomena of dreaming; but he succeeds only in 
part. The very unbeginningness of Grod, is not 
more incomprehensible to you and me, than is the 
experience of sleep. "We can enjoy it; and can 
know^ its recuperative effect on us. But the most 
satisfying conclusion we can reach, in respect to it, 
is, that it is one of those inscrutable modes, by 
which the Almighty God sustains animal life. 

" How wonderful is Death ! 
Peath and his brother Sleep !^^ — Shelley. 

We infer, therefore, that there is nothing, in the 
Universe, the innermost secret of which we can 
completely make our own. All our processes of 
thought, lead us to the mysterious, the incompre- 
hensible. We do well, in our inquiries. We arrive 
at great generalizations. We clap our hands, in 



Traits. 157 

view of our discoveries. Still, the tilings wliich we 
best know, are things which we know only in part. 
"The last step of reason," says Pascal, ''is to know 
that there is an infinitude of things which surpass 
it.'' Everything has its mysterious something. 
Where is the philosopher who knows all that a 
simple grain of sand is ? Here and there, we must 
pause, in our investigations, and confess that we 
have come to mystery — that little particles of mean 
dust have balked our brave faculties — that the very 
air and the very water contain elements which are 
as mysterious as the nature of the soul itself. It is 
only in part, that G-od has revealed his will to man. 
It was only in part, that the prophets prophesied. 
It is only in part, that we can know our origin, our 
relations, or our destiny. Mystery is in everything ; 
and the supernatural is in all mystery ! 

With what disposition, let us now inquire, should 
we arrive at those limits of analysis and simplifica- 
tion, at which our finiteness dooms us to pause ? 
The true answer to this question is, that we should, 
then, rest in God. We should think, that some- 
thing of his power is present, in everything, making 
the nature of everything incomprehensible ; and we 
should see, that the reason why we can know only 
in part, is because God only can know the whole. 
Under the trees of the forest, we should tread re- 
verently, assured that there is an Almighty Thinker 
near us, working out his own ideals, in his own 
modes ; forming every fiber which is moistened with 
sap, and fashioning every veined leaf, according to 
Ms own secret thought. We should hear the Most 
High, in the thunder which makes the still air 
14 



158 A Man. 

tremble ; and should be mindful of his power when 
we behold the lightning licking the clouds with its 
fiery tongue. '- Lord," exclaimed the Psalmist, 
'•how great are thy works, and thy thoughts are 
very deep. A brutish man knoweth not, neither 
doth a fool understand this." Become a thinker, 
and you will become a person of reverence. Often, 
when the sun is setting in the hazy blue of the west, 
or when the shadows of evening are falling, you 
will wander alone, for the purpose of gi^dng greater 
scope to the devotional longings of your nature. 
In beautiful secluded places, you will court the 
society of those good angels, and of that holy Spirit, 
by whose noiseless agency we all are influenced, in 
modes which v^ll be mysterious to us, so long as 
we shall remain in the flesh. 



ni. 

POSTHUMOUS IXILUEXCE. 

The thinker imbodies his personal force, in many 
forms. Hence, he insures to himself the power to 
influence men, after his death. '- Is Mr. Butler 
dead ? " asked Queen Caroline, of Archbishop Black- 
burn, "iso^ madam," responded the prelate, ''but 
he is buried." Books, implements, machines, edi- 
fices, models in the fine arts — these all are or- 
ganisms, in which buried thinkers, in a true sense, 
still live and are mighty. The kingly soul passes 
two lives, under the sun. One is its life, as a pro- 
ducer ; the other is its life, in the works which it 
has produced. In one, its power is more its own 



Posthumous Influence. 159 

and its country's ; in tlie other, its power Is more 
the possession of all men and of all countries. 

*' Seven -wealthy to^ns contend for Homer dead, 
Through which the Hving Homer begged his bread/^ 

Shakspeare is Shakspeare's and England's, till he 
dies ; then he is the bard of the world. Washington, 
after his death, is the world's Washington. ''No 
people," says Phillips, ''can claim, and no country 
can appropriate him." 

Every individual has, in his mind, a number of 
ideals of great men whom he never has seen, but 
of whom he has read, with ardor, admiration, and 
delight. 'No faults, no infirmities have place in 
these ideals. We all, I think, find it difiacult to 
form a conception of I^apoleon the First, as having 
possessed failings common to mortals. Our imagi- 
nation, in despite of our reasoning faculty, precludes 
from our ideal of this hero, every base trait. How 
often are we almost prepared, openly to palliate the 
hardihood with which he repudiated his innocent, 
clinging wife ; and to gloss that selfish ambition, 
for the sake of which he caused the waste of such 
rivers of human blood ! Even in his death, on 
St. Helena, how often do w^e see him, as a great 
man, writhing on his couch, in sublime. Promethean 
agony! "The splendor and enthusiasm of the 
hero," says Lord Kames, "transfused into the 
readers, elevate their minds far above the rules of 
justice, and render them, in a measure, insensible 
of the wrongs which are committed." 

To this ideal tendency, is, undoubtedly, owing 



i6o A Man. 

the factj that, when we read the writings of the pro- 
phets, of the apostles, and of the Christian fathers, 
we almost overlook the appalling deaths of many 
of these heroes of the Church. Do yon think to 
ask, when yon peruse Isaiah and Jeremiah, whether 
the one was sawn asunder, or the other was, in some 
different way, martyred ? Was it not a long time, 
before you sought to know the manner in which 
Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Paul died; and 
before you tried- to form a vivid conception of Peter, 
as suffering crucifixion with his head downward? 
"Were these men overcome, at times, by bodily in- 
firmities ? Were they worried, day by day, by the 
question, whether they were or were not to be mar- 
tyred ? Not in this way, do you think of them. But 
their holy earnestness so permeates you, that you 
almost think of them, as men who possessed souls 
without bodies ! 

The number is not great, of those who, before 
their death, insured to themselves extensive posthu- 
mous infiuence. This kind of influence depends on 
the fact, that the works of the thinker tend to raise 
the mind of every one who studies them, into a 
mood of inspiration, similar to that in which the 
thinker himself produced them, l^ewton, by his 
discovery of the law of gravitation, made the minds 
of all civilized people partakers of his own interest 
in the beauties and the wonders of the heavens. 
The Paradise Lost prepared intelligent minds for a 
participation in the Miltonic inspiration and rap- 
ture. There is philosophy, as well as poetry, in 
those words of Cowley, which Dugald Stewart calls 
^'his first burst of juvenile emotion:" 



Manliness. l6l 

" What shall I do to be forever known, 
And make the age to come my own? 
I shall, like beasts or common people, die, 
Unless you write my eulogy. 
■X- ^ 4f -^ -;f -x- 

What sound isH strikes mine ear? 
Sure I Fame's trumpet hear ! 
It sounds like the last trumpet, for it can 
Raise up the buried man/' 

From the foregoing view of postliiimoiis influence, 
we may learn liow good a thing it is, to all men, for 
one excellent man to have accomplished a work 
which will make him famous. When a new triumph 
of thought is achieved, you have reason to exclaim, 
" I am a nobler man for that ! " It is well, that the 
pyramids of Egypt were built. It is well, that the 
Colosseum and the St. Peter's were reared. From 
these structures men derive an elevating inspiration. 
Poor, indeed, would be the race, were there no 
treasured models of painting, of statuary, and of 
architecture. He is a benefactor, who produces a 
standard work in the fine arts. 

IV. 

MANLINESS. 

How may a person form a manly character ? Let 
him learn to think. Let him learn that man was 
not placed on this goodly planet, merely to eat, to 
drink, to be merry, to use his limbs, and to sleep. 
Let him learn that we are not men, till we have be- 
come thinkers — that a thousand voices are all of the 
time bidding us to think — that every thriving tree, 
14* L 



1 62 A Man. 

and living bird, and busy insect, seems to say to ns, 
'' ! how I would think were I a man ! " 

Do yoii not see, .that there are too many who 
hardly seem to think one real thought, from their 
cradles to their graves ; and whose faces and words 
seem always indicative of a heart that is wanting in 
value, and that can be cheaply bought ? Vanity is 
almost synonymous with vacancy: but is not our 
fashionable society composed, principally, of vain 
people ? A fev»^ think too much ; but thousands 
think too little. It were a sin for a person to think 
himself to death : but what were it for a person to 
think so little, that his head should contain nothing 
better than thoughts of pleasure-parties, music, 
showy apparel, gold adornments, and the latest 
novels ? The brain may ache, from two causes — 
fi^om too much thought, and from the want of 
thought. In the latter case, there is not sufficient 
m.ental energy to counteract the outside pressure. 
The head feels as if it were about to collapse. Ah ! 
what bubbles there are in human form, and what 
bubbles these bubbles pursue ! 

Manliness thou hast not, young man, unless thou 
art deeply thoughtful. Boys may turn into men, by 
a speedy change. There is only a year between the 
grandiloquent style of a sophomore, and the scho- 
larly anti-wordiness of a senior. To have become 
thoroughly informed in respect to the size of the 
universe, to have caught some vivid glimpses of the 
infinitude of the finite, to have questioned down to 
those knots of mystery v^.th which nature abounds, 
to have clearly conceived how much there is to be 
known and how little the most learned man has 



Manliness. 163 

learned — surely these persuasions and glimpses, and 
such as these, with 

'' The pain sublime of thought that has no word'' 

which accompanies them, should suffice to keep a 
person's mind from ever being a boy's mind again. 

But let it be observed, here, that a great many 
boys never turn into men ; or, rather, that a great 
many men are always nothing more than boys. 
Such was Alcibiades of Athens, ''whose ruling 
passion," says a French wi^iter, ''was to make a 
noise and furnish matter of conversation to the 
Athenians." Such was Homer's Thersites. Such, 
too, was James of England, the royal successor of 
Queen Elizabeth, of whom Sully, who knew him 
well, said "he was the wisest fool in Europe." 
These boys might have been men, had they timely 
learned to think. He who never " haugs plummets 
on the heels of pride," never possesses true stability. 
He who does not become thoughtful, does not be- 
come a man ; for manliness is the result of thought- 
fulness. 

Not a few young persons make the mistake of 
confining their intellectual powers, for too long a 
time, to the acti^dty of mere acquisition. They are 
found doing the work and enjoying the pleasures 
of a mental adolescence, when they should be en- 
gaged in the plans and the projects of a mental 
manhood. They study well, remember well, imagine 
well, dream well ; but they do not observe, abstract, 
compare, reason, generalize, classify, and invent 
well. They gather excellent knowledge from books ; 
and still go on harvesting and garnering, till, like 



164 A Man. 

the covetous man in tlie parable, they must needs be 
startled and mortified, by the terrible edict, " This 
night thy soul shall be required of thee ! Then, 
whose shall these things be which thou hast pro- 
vided?" 

It is well to lay up knowledge ; but to make no 
use of the knowledge laid up, this is unmanly. "What 
nothingness to the earth, would be sun-heat and the 
rain of summer clouds, muck and compost, if the 
earth could never produce anything? What no- 
thingness would oxygen be to the lungs, if it were 
not employed in the fiery process of blood-making ? 
And what nothingness must knowledge be to him 
who gathers it, as the stone gathers substance, 
merely to hold it in a stolid embrace ! Too many 
bright intellects have gone out in mean obscurity, 
which, had they seasonably formed a habit of philo- 
sophic searching, might have shed a great light on 
mankind. Man was made to be a philosopher — 
every man was ! There is no sane person who should 
not live a life of intellectual productiveness. He 
ought, somehow, to bestow on the race, a work new 
and peculiar. He should be an originator, in his 
own way, not in any other way. Originality is 
what gives grandness to the mind of man. To per- 
form some difficult task, helped but little, and 
mimicking nobody ; it may be to imbody some ideal 
into a form which shall cause a hundred souls to 
throb with better life; it may be to project some 
excellent social, educational, political, or religious 
enterprise ; it may be to discover, or, by means of 
ingenuity and skill, to make available, some force. 



Manliness.. 165; 

adapted to carry civilization further forward -r- acti- 
vity, like this, rewarded, as it ever is, by pleasures 
which permeate the soul with a refreshing sweet- 
ness, is the kind of activity which every person will 
seek, whose longings are healthy and heroic. 

Did you ever consider the truth, that we owe all 
our sciences to the exquisite pleasures of thought? 
Books of science are not, as many people would at 
first suppose, the results of long-continued joyless 
inquiry. They are, rather, the offspring of a delight- 
ful travail of great minds. Those who have given 
us our sciences, were, it is true, men of much taci- 
turnity and gravity. They were, perhaps, often 
pronounced unsociable. But what could have kept 
them so long in solitary activity ? what could have 
made them willing to forego popular amusements ? 
what could have maintained the vigor of their bodies 
and the ardor of their minds? what could have 
afibrded them adequate encouragement to perse- 
verance in their toils ? what but the sweetness of 
pleasures which they preferred before all the plea- 
sures of appetite, of v/ealth, or of fashion ? 

Do not say, that God has brought any rational 
person into this world, never to be a thinker ! What 
is it for a man to live without thought ? It is to 
neglect the higher powers of his soul, for the sake 
of developing its lower ones. It is to look on won- 
derful things, without ever seeing them. It is to 
take into the ear, the most exquisite sounds, with- 
out ever hearing them. It is to suffer with no powder 
to be strong. It is to enjoy with no experience of 
intellectual rapture. God is dishonored by him who 



1 66 A Man. 

plows, not caring to know of what the ground is 
made ; by liim who sows grain, never considering 
the philosophy of its germination and growth ; by 
him who daily makes a fire, but, in all his days, 
never thinks what combustion is ; by him who fre- 
quently passes by a steam-engine, never ascertain- 
ing how it operates as a means of motion ; and by 
him who walks, every month, under the moon, never 
inquiring whence it borrows its light, why it ex- 
hibits its phases, or how it becomes eclipsed. Do 
you not believe that God is displeased with the man 
who is content to live without thought ? He who is 
not, sometimes, a philosopher, is a slave, a dreamer, 
or a blockhead. "What would you think of an eagle, 
having wings which might bear it above the clouds, 
but which should keep those wings folded, and 
should travel always on the ground ? "What would 
you think of a fish which should be able to dart, 
like a sunbeam, through the water, but which should 
choose to remain on the river's edge, among the 
weeds and the tadpoles ? "What would you think 
of a tree which should bloom, every year, but which 
should never produce fruit ? And what should you 
think of a man, possessing a mind, but who should 
be content to let that mind's higher powers lie for 
ever asleep ? 

The great truth is yet to be generally learned and 
practically applied, that no person can live a noble 
and joyful life, so long as he stints his intellect to 
meager opportunities. May the beautiful day hasten, 
when all absurd subordinations of mind to matter 
shall have ceased ; and when men everywhere shall 



Manliness. 167 

strive as earnestly to secure intellectual, as they now 
do to secure material, advantages — when the farmer 
will be much more than a plower, a sower, a reaper, 
a seller, a laborer ; when he will be a public-spirited 
patriot, a companion, to some extent, with scientific 
and literary men, a citizen of the world, in one ex- 
pressive word, a thinker ; and when there will hardly 
be found, in all the land, a person pursuing the 
carpenter's trade, the shoemaker's trade, the mason's 
trade, the butcher's trade, or any other trade, who 
shall not, at the same time, be found to possess a 
well-stored mind and a refined taste for the employ- 
ments and the pleasures of the higher intellectual 
life. 



i68 A Man. 



PAPER VI. 

CONVEESATION. 

Thought is followed by expression. Expression 
is a natural consequence of mental operation. It is, 
also, generic. In utterances, and in many other 
modes, you communicate your feelings and your 
wishes. The celebrated Roscius could hold the at- 
tention of an audience, by looks and gestures alone ; 
and, in this way, he was ready to vie, in effective 
expression, with the eloquent and popular Cicero, 
who addressed men's ears as well as their eyes. Do 
we not often speak well when our tongues are silent? 
"Silence,'* says Currer Bell, "is of different kinds, 
and breathes different meanings." Of some faces, 
we are accustomed to say, that they have no expres- 
sion. To the thoughtful man, those countenances 
only are beautiful, which are communicative of in- 
telligence and amiable traits. Campanella, the phi- 
losopher, held, that it is impossible for a person 
even temporarily assuming a particular look, to 
avoid, while his countenance is thus changed, the 
mental disposition naturally connected with that 
expression. He claimed, that, by mimicking men's 
looks, he could enter into their thoughts and feel- 
ings. It is certain, that some observing and saga- 
cious persons can, with singular facility, translate 
the language of silent thought and emotion. 



Conversation. 1 69 

With a quickness apparently intuitive, they are able 
to ascertain character from its modes of mute ex- 
pression. Amid the secrets of how many unconfiding 
hearts, do these persons wander ! They could soon 
express for you your wordless mood, and, perhaps, 
make you own that they have, in some manner, un- 
bolted your soul, and stolen your long-treasured 
ideal. 

Self-expression is inevitable. Only learn all the 
alphabets through which thought is manifested, and 
you could make deceit itself pronounce you almost 
a prophet. 

We may, therefore, conclude, that, whenever 
awake, we are speaking, in some manner, of our- 
selves. There are two kinds of egotism. One is 
voluntary, and is disagreeable ; the other is invo- 
luntary, and is pleasing. A person often talks 
fluently of himself in his sleep. 

Expression, considered as a matter of choice, is 
either a means of securing participation in expe- 
rience, or a means of exerting influence. The rea- 
son why we sometimes express more than we do at 
other times, is, because we employ more expressive 
signs. I have made discoveries, says the inner 
man ; how, now, may I best communicate them ? 
I have formed ideals of beauty and truth; how, 
now, may I best imbody them? I have framed 
theories ; how, now, may I best declare and illus- 
trate them ? The thinker has secrets which are too 
good to be kept. 
15 



170 A Man 



LANGUAGE. 

The chief purpose of expression, in social hours, 
is to secure participation. Its chief purpose, in 
oratory and in composition, is usually twofold — 
having reference both to participation, and to the 
exertion of personal force. 

The principal means, by which ideas and feelings 
are conveyed from the mind, so as to be understood 
and shared by other minds, is language. Words 
are the vehicles, in which ride the soul's bright 
offspring. Written words are anchored vessels of 
thought. Utterances — those " mouthfuls of spoken 
wind" — convey ideas and feelings from the lips of 
the speaker to the ear of the listener. But these 
vary in the speed with which they traverse the air. 
In some instances, they move fast ; in other in- 
stances, slow. Some of them are tossed off, like 
playthings ; others are shot off, like rockets or like 
bombs. Some of them move like weak-winged 
birds ; others move like the lightning. Utterances 
vary, also, in sound. Some of them buzz and hiss. 
Many of them are shrill. One class have a chirping 
sound ; another class have a harsh, discordant sound. 
Some utterances are low-toned and muttering; others 
are softly and tenderly musical. 

But the power to express thought, in utterances, 
adds, incalculably, to human enjoyment. Conversa- 
tion doubles the pleasing effect on a person's mind, of 
his own perceptions of beauty and truth. Further- 
more, it makes these perceptions sources of plea- 



Language. 171 

sure to him, again and again. How would ten 
thousand choice objects of solitary observation lose 
their enchantment, could no after-delights be expe- 
rienced, by us, in filling the air between our lips 
and the sympathizing ears of friends, with sweetly- 
sounding words and sentences ! The deaf and dumb 
may become able to converse by means of pencils, 
pens, and their fingers ; but, in their higher life of 
thought and feeling, they must needs sufifer the pain- 
ful pressure of an experience which they have no 
way efiectually to communicate. What would a 
visit to the Moon or to Mercury be worth to you, if 
3'ou could never make it a topic of conversation ? 
What would you give to see the Alps, Mt. Blanc, 
or the lovely woods of Vallambrosa, were you inca- 
pable of conveying your impressions of natural 
scenery ? Who would wish to go to Heaven, if it 
were certain that all the inhabitants there are deaf 
and dumb ? When a traveler beholds, for the first 
time, the pyramids of Egypt, he thinks of the 
astoundins: ma2:nificence of those structures ; and 
then, of what does he think ? Is it not his far-ofi:* 
friends and fellow-countrymen, and the grand theme 
which he will have for their entertainment, when 
he shall have reached his own dear home again ? 

The most pleasing objects become less so, as soon 
as we find that we must never speak of them ; and 
more so, as soon as we make them topics of harmo- 
nious conversation. 

The power to communicate thought and feeling, 
is as much to the soul, as motion is to the body. 
See the gifted first Ifapoleon, oil St. Helena, doomed 
to perpetual loneliness ! See how soon his heart 



172 A Man. 

sinks, and he loses the Napoleonic spirit, and be- 
comes petulant, weak, and delirious ! It is but 
natural, that he who has begun to live among a 
people whose language he little knows, should be 
disposed to receive, almost as a bosom-friend, the 
first stranger who relieves his wearied ear, with 
words spoken in the same sweet tongue which he 
learned from the lips of his mother. 

Language should be understood to be a result of 
the desire of communication. As thought precedes 
expression, it is plain that speech was not, origin- 
ally, ''an instinct inspired by God himself;" but 
was, rather, an invented means of securing a profit- 
able and agreeable participation, in the plans, the 
projects, and the ideas of the mind. The tendency 
of the experiences of the soul, when not communi- 
cated, to recoil on the soul, and make its sensibili- 
ties morbid, is sufficient to account for the invention 
of alphabets and languages. The American, on the 
Mle, takes lessons of his dragoman, as if he were 
a disciplined linguist ; and the Hungarian refugee, 
in England, is not long in learning how to talk as 
they do on the banks of Thames river. Communi- 
cation, by words, is so essential to human welfare, 
that nations do not have great thinkers, till they 
have well-developed languages. ''It is with lan- 
guages," says Condillac, " as with geometrical signs ; 
they give a new insight into things, and dilate the 
mind, in proportion as they are more perfect." A 
modern critic observes, that Homer could have done 
nothing with the language of New Holland. 



Congeniality. 173 

n. 

CONGENtALlTY. 

Conversatiou requires a participative hearing. 
"'No enjoyment whatever," says Seneca, ^^ can be 
agreeable without participation." "Who does not 
know, that there are delicate experiences which are 
blissful to him who has a congenial sharer in them ; 
but which would be to him only as the cup of Tan- 
talus, if he could not have such a sharer ? To whom 
would not the future be entirely uninviting, were 
there no possibility of passing, congenially attended, 
amid its glooms and its splendors ? And to whom 
would not the past present few attractions, could 
no remembrances and reminiscences of delightful 
conversation, often flock before his intellectual 
eye, from memory's fair inner world? Think how 
many beautiful objects are near j^ou, and how many 
scenes, gilded with an undying luster, you can recall, 
which owe their peculiar charm almost solely to 
experiences of congeniality. You have spoken, with 
soft eloquence, of the deep forest, when clothed in 
its summer livery. The birds, you said, were re- 
joicing in the gorgeous trees. You sat beneath the 
overhanging branches and foliage of grouped ever- 
greens. The repose of the place was cool and sweet. 
In all your future life, you will not forget the hour 
and the scene. And, at another time, you have 
spoken, with a poetic unction, of happy wanderings 
iu flowery valleys, and roamings over breezy high- 
lands, and dallyings on the banks of gently-rolling 
rivers. But you may not have considered, why 
15 ''^ 



174 A Man. 

these and similar remembrances have a power so 
soothing and perennial. 

Suppose yourself to be thrown into the lap of 
some virgin island, situated at a distance from any 
scene of busy society. Conceive that, on this island, 
you should be doomed to remain, having all your 
physical wants adequately supplied, but having no 
companion to share in your experience. Around 
you, Nature would exhibit her beauties and her 
glories. The atmosphere would be salubrious. By 
day and by night, on one hand and on the other, 
wonderful objects would present themselves to your 
senses. Refreshing perfumes and melodies would 
be borne on the breezes. Brilliant gems would 
gleam amid the sand of the shores. An enticing 
luxuriance would cover the ground and wave in the 
trees. The forms of attractive animals would daily 
move, in the air, in the water, and on the land. 
Over the scene, the sky would bend kindly. Angels 
themselves would be delighted to stop there, and 
linger. Beauty, grandeur, and sublimity, would 
never be wanting. But you have, perhaps, already 
anticipated the thought, that, under the doom which 
has been mentioned, you could not be happy, on 
this fair island. Why not? Simply because you 
must needs live there, in utter loneliness. ^'"Were 
a man," says Cicero, ^'to be carried up to heaven, 
and the beauties of universal nature displayed to 
his view, he would receive but little pleasure from 
the wonderful scene, if there were none to whom he 
might relate the glories he had beheld. Human 
nature, indeed, is so constituted, as to be incapable 
of lonely satisfaction : man, like those plants which 



Congeniality. ^75 

are formed to embrace otliers, is led by an instinc- 
tive impulse to recline on his species ; and lie finds 
his happiest and most secure support, in the arms 
of a faithful friend." Seneca affirms, that, even if 
wisdom were offered him, under such restriction as 
would oblige him to conceal it, he would reject the 
ofier. If, in the situation which has been supposed, 
you could associate with human beings who should 
be strangers, yet disposed to treat you with kind- 
ness, then some pleasure and content would be pos- 
sible. Should you, on another supposition, be per- 
mitted to hold familiar and congenial intercourse, 
whenever you would, with friends, then, and then 
only, could your experience, on the virgin island 
we have imagined, in any moment, afford you in- 
tense pleasure. 

Thus, we arrive at the secret of ITature's continued 
power of enchantment. It lies in the possibility of 
mutual participation. Harmonious intercourse, be- 
tween kindred, lovers, or bosom-friends, is what 
keeps the scenery of the seasons in repute, from 
one age to another. Deprive a person, for life, of 
the delights of congeniality, and no landscape would 
greatly please him again. Does not a man commit 
suicide, when his inward experience is such that 
other persons cannot participate in it ? Let the bliss 
of harmonious converse be proved impossible in 
Heaven, and Heaven would become to you and me 
a dreary word. Oh ! how ill would man fare, in the 
woeful moods which affliction or his own sin causes 
him to experience, could he not vent his grief, and 
get sympathy ! 



176 A Man. 

"But when they left her to herself again, 
Death, like a friend's voice from a distant field 
Approaching through the darkness, called : the owb 
"Wailing had power upc»n her, and she mixed 
Iler fancies with the sallow-rifted glooms 
Of evening, and the moanings of the wind.'^ 

Texxtsox. 

It is not affiiTned, that a person may not be an agree- 
able companion to liimself. Solitude is, certainly, 
not always nnjjleasant. The philosopher finds his 
highest enjo^mient in seclusion. All that is most 
valuable in books, has resulted from a fondness for 
solitary study and thought. But you will observe, 
that it is one thing to be so separated from society 
as still to have the power of interchanging ideas and 
feelings, and another thing to be so separated fi'om 
society as to have no such power of interchange. 
'• Solitude." says Balzac. '• is certainly a fine thing; 
but there is a pleasure in having some one whom 
we may tell, from time to time, that solitude is a 
fine thing.*' There is a difierence between solitude 
and loneliness. When a person's situation is such 
that all intercourse with other persons is impossible 
to him. then his thoughts inevitably become dark 
and joyless. Lonely prisoners have been known, 
who had made companions even of rats and insects. 
The Count de Lauzun. who was confined by Louis 
Xr\".5 for nine years, in the castle of Pignerol. where 
he was in perpetual twilight, had become afifection- 
ately attached to a spider. He amused himself with 
efforts to tame this insect. lie supplied it with flies. 
He superintended the progress of its web. This 
occupation afforded hirn, considerable relief. But 
the jailer, one day, discovered his amusement, and 



Congeniality. 177 

killed the spider. '^'And the Count," says Diigald 
Stewart, " used, afterward, to declare, that the pang 
he felt, on the occasion, could be compared only to 
that of a mother, for the loss of a child." 

In the light of the foregoing views and facts, we 
may conclude, that the man whose inspirations and 
visions are too lofty to be understood by his own 
generation, cannot but manifest, in his general Xle- 
meanor, a mood of mournful seriousness. Jesus 
Christ, undoubtedly, expressed a deep and habitual 
sadness, during the entire course of his mission. 
And, in the ages, there have lived and died solemn 
Homers, Platos, and Miltons, who, during all the 
years of their manhood, might have been seen look- 
ing longingly into the future, for that perfect parti- 
cipation in experience, which they desired, but 
could not realize, on the trial-stage of their gifted 
souls ! 

It is sometimes thought, that genius is constitu- 
tionally unsociable and taciturn. But genius is 
sufficiently sociable, in congenial society. That it 
should rarely or never be so, out of such society, 
where is the wonder ? Do you find fault with Mil- 
ton, because he usually liked to commune with 
himself, better than with the light-minded Mary 
Powell? Would you think it strange had Dean 
Swift written, that Gulliver used to feel sadly in- 
communicative, in the social circles of Lilliput? 
Genius is rarely so empty as to relish talking with 
vanity, and rarely so silly as to enjoy answering a 
fool like a fool. 

True and happy conversation is that, in which 
there is a mutually agreeable interchange of thought 

M 



178 A Man. 

and feeling. Hence, before you pronounce a person 
unsociable, you should consider what kind of society 
it is, in which he is unsociable. Thinkers do not 
tire of converse with thinkers. Philosophers usually 
have fruitful lips, when philosophers are their com- 
pany. Wise men do not call wise men taciturn. 

Does a fashionable gentleman aiSrm, that he 
would not like to make an excursion with a geolo- 
gist? Does a garrulous lady declare, that a certain 
statesman would make an uncongenial partner in 
the conjugal relation, because he remained silent, 
yesterday, while she was discoursing to him on 
music ? Does a conceited, noisy fanatic, deem a 
profound theologian a weak debater, because, in a 
brief discussion, he gave up to him so many points, 
and became utterly speechless ? Does a shallow 
panegyrist of nature, at i^iagara Falls, manifest sur- 
prise, because his neighbor, who is distinguished for 
mental depth and force, can behold the grand scene 
without jumping, as he does, almost out of his shoes, 
and shouting ''with the noise of twenty devils ? " 
All such instances illustrate the general truth, that, 
between great minds and little minds, there cannot 
but be a want of that congeniality which is indis- 
pensable to pleasant conversation. 

III. 

GOSSIP. 

There is a kind of intercourse, which prevails to 
a lamentable extent, in nearly every town and neigh- 
borhood. Gossip is the talk of people that have more 
grasp of ear than of intellect. It is reproduced con- 



Gossip. ^79 

versation. The gossip communicates ideas which 
he has received either from the persons who first 
uttered them, or from other gossips. So, Barker's 
mill swallows water entering it in one line of mo- 
tion, and whirls out the same water in another. 
How many peo]Dle there are, that talk as if their 
minds were little machines, placed between their 
organ of hearing and their apparatus of speech, and 
always kept in running order ! These machines 
convey to the vocal spout, what enters at the audi- 
tory funnel. 

Cheap, indeed, is gossip. It requires no more 
thought than is needed for blowing a sound out of 
a dinner-horn. The attention is not fixed. The 
reason is not vigorously exercised. The judgment 
is not carefully employed. AVho ever gossips, that 
possesses a thoughtful, fruitful mind? Who ever 
gossips, that is capable of holding an abstract truth 
better than he can hold a flea ? How much imagina- 
tion does gossip require ? Sufiicient merely to com- 
plete a scene when some rumor of it is heard, or to 
make out a notorious afl:air from some half-expressed 
surmise. How much memory does it require ? Sufii- 
cient merely to keep the latest street-news fresh for 
a flippant rehearsal, on the first occasion which pre- 
sents itself. How much conscientiousness does it 
require ? Sufficient merely to allow persons to do 
to others as they would not that others should do to 
them. 

Such is gossip. Certainly, you never find an 
individual, with a strong mind, indulging in this 
species of semi-automatic talk. He who is thought- 
ful, subjects his perceptions, his gleanings of infer- 



i8o A Man. 

mation, the rumors, the reports, the fancies, the 
notions, and the whims which come to him, to the 
test of reason and judgment, before he introduces 
them, in his social hours, as leading topics. His 
mind impresses on whatever it receives, its own 
energy. His utterances are charged with the elec- 
tricity of thought. 

Buffon, it is said, used to derive pleasure from 
listening, during the time of his morning toilet, to 
familiar rehearsals of the village gossip, from the 
lips of his barber. But it will not be supposed, that 
Buifon was pleased to return gossip for gossip, in 
his chit-chats with that unthinking master of the 
razor. He possessed a mind which could trace signs 
of the times in the talk of the streets, and could 
learn useful lessons of human nature from the prate 
of tell-tales. He was a thinker. His words abounded 
with meanings. They expressed the operations of a 
soul that was profoundly busy. There is little doubt 
that he inwardly despised the very gossip to which 
he regularly listened. 

In our American society, there are thousands who 
are addicted to the kind of inane talk of which I 
speak. Gossip is specially prevalent in all our 
country villages. It serves to indicate how great is 
the need of a more thorough intellectual culture, 
on the part, especially, of the female sex. Not all 
women who dress well, move in fashionable circles, 
and talk nimbly, are ladies. A lady is something 
nobler than a human butterfly that can gossip 
fluently. A real lady is the representative of the 
beautiful in human sjanmetry, the refined in human 
manners, the perfect in human virtue, the gentle 



Gossip. 181 

and constant in human love. She is the charmer 
of man. From vice, from folly, from error, and 
from the dangerous mazes of worldly ambition, she 
charms Inm. She is the reformer of man. In his 
tastes, his manners, and his dispositions, she reforms 
him. Her success depends on the expression of her 
soul. Beauty of appearance is necessary, but beauty 
of words is more necessary. She may be rich or 
poor, a maiden or a mother, an accomplished player 
on the piano, or one who does not play on the piano 
at all ; still she cannot but be a highly interesting 
inhabitant of this world. A real lady never gossips. 
She is too thoughtful, too amiable, too modest, too 
wise to gossip. Gossiping women are not womanly 
ladies. They make bad neighbors ; for they either 
disturb the harmony of the neighborhood in which 
they live, by their offensive habit of tattling, or 
they make its intercourse too shallow to be profit- 
able and sweet. They make poor friends ; for true 
friendship cannot thrive on such aliment as is 
afforded in the talk of gossips. It requires an un- 
derlying fund of goodness and strength. It requires 
mutual breathings of tender meanings. It may, 
nominally, subsist between minds that are without 
depth ; but it is genuine only when it subsists be- 
tween minds that are deep and worthy. Further- 
more, they make uncongenial companions in the 
matrimonial state ; for a beautiful wife, without a 
beautiful soul, there never was, and never will be. 
Love itself soon tires of charms which are only ex- 
ternal. Vanity is a disappointment of affection ; 
and weak talk never fosters a fond constancy. ''A 
fine woman who knows what she is about," says one 
16 



i82 A Man. 

of the novelists, ^'is satisfied that nothing is less 
enticing than a merry look; the eternal smile must 
be left for those whose only beauty consists in a fine 
set of teeth." None but dandies should marry 
gossiping women ; for dandies are the only class of 
men that know how to do without souls. A thought- 
ful man should be linked with a thoughtful woman, 
else, in the conjugal relation, there will, surely, be 
trouble. Conversation between husband and wife, 
if harmonious, is the sweetest of all that can be ; 
but let Thought marry Vanity, and the intercourse 
between the two cannot but be sadly uncongenial. 

lY. 

LOQUACITY. 

There is evil, also, in desultory and purposeless 
talk. Some people say a great deal, in a short time ; 
but they say little that it were worth while to re- 
member. Their ideas are uttered without order, 
and, apparently, without aim. Expression should 
be as much rational as thought. As in correct rea- 
soning, ideas are closely linked ; so, in correct inter- 
course, words and sentences are intimately con- 
nected. ^'Do not speak," says an Asiatic proverb, 
''till you have thought on what jo^\ intend to say." 

Of rambling talkers, there is not a small number. 
Their tongues are as fond of a change of subject, 
as the school-boy is of a change of recreation. They 
tire you, with a medley of superficial observations, 
on unrelated topics. How wonderful are the powers 
of some people ! In their talk, they can circumna- 
vigate the globe in half an hour, and then be ready 



Loquacity. 183 

for a trip to the moon ! Into liow brief an interval 
of time can tliey press steam-engines, telegraphs, 
reaping-machines, a hundred late literary books, 
almost as many remarkable men of the age, the 
city of New York, the Mississippi river, the Niagara 
Falls, and big things ever so many more ! It were 
almost hazardous for a man who is accustomed to 
profound and accurate thought, to attempt to con- 
verse with a stranger in a vehicle of travel, lest he 
become engaged in conversation with some one of 
those prodigies of volubility, who keep a philosophic 
mind rambling, till it is overcome with fatigue. 
Charles Lamb gives an amusing incident which will 
serve me, here, for an illustration. 

He was, once, riding in a stage-coach, containing 
one of that class of loquacious persons who presume 
to consider themselves ''well-informed men." "A 
rather talkative gentleman," says Elia, "but very 
civil, engaged me in a discourse, for full twenty 
miles, on the probable advantages of steam-car- 
riages, which, being merely problematical, I bore 
my part in, with some credit, in spite of my totally 
un-engineer-like faculties. But when, somewhere 
about Stanstead, he put an unfortunate question to 
me, as to the probability of its turning out a good 
turnip season, and when I, who am still less of an 
agriculturist than a steam-philosopher, not knowing 
a turnip from a potato ground, innocently made 
answer, that I believed ' it depended very much on 
boiled legs of mutton,' my unlucky reply set Miss 
Isola a-laughing to a degree that disturbed her tran- 
quillity for the only moment in our journey." 

There could, surely, have been little good of the 



184 A Man. 

conversation, to that fickle wanderer over the world 
of topics. Conversation affords true profit and plea- 
sure, only when it involves a rational and yet un- 
strained activity of the mind. The outer self should, 
in the social hour, be in the service of the inner. 
Then, the soul will talk. Each topic will be held 
till it is naturally superseded by another. Of na- 
ture's animation, there will be much; of affected 
interest, none. Wit there will be, and logic, and 
originality, and eloquence. When the inner man 
speaks, something vital is said. 

It were better for a person to remain silent, than 
to talk for the mere sake of filling the air with 
words. If a person is so ill-disciplined, that, to 
sustain a conversation, he must needs make haste 
from topic to topic, nibbling a little at the surface 
of each till he would weary you out of your temper 
or to sleep, then may he never attempt to hold a 
discourse with anybody. May he, when he is riding 
in the coach or the car, remain as taciturn as he 
can. May he, at least, never presume to tax the 
patience of those dear friends of yours and mine — 
the thinkers! '^Nature," says Dean Swift, '^has 
left every man a cajoacity of being agreeable, though 
not of shining in company ; and there are a hundred 
men sufficiently qualified for both, who, by a very 
few faults that they might correct in half an hour, 
are not so much as tolerable.'' 



Egotism. 185 



EGOTISM. 

Loquacity, in conversation, is not more offensive 
than egotism. The egotist is a self-sacrificing per- 
son. He takes on himself the chief part, in the 
social hour, whether his kindness is likely to prove 
acceptable or not. He is resolved to occupy the 
center of the conversing circle, in despite of what- 
ever centrifugal tendencies he may cause to be felt 
at the circumference. Everj^ topic, not introduced 
by himself, he deems of little account. Does some 
one propound a novel question ? He instantly as- 
sumes, that it is propounded to him, and undertakes 
to give an all-satisfying answer. Does some one 
venture a rare observation ? He is the first to com- 
ment on it. Swelling with conceit of self, he extends 
his remarks. Now, he utters a turgid sentence, be- 
ginning with a capital I; and now he utters another, 
ending with an emphasized myself. If the beauty 
of some distant place should be described, his an- 
swer, according to Mrs. Ellis, might be, ''/never 
was there, but my uncle once was within ten miles 
of it ; and had it not been for the miscarriage of a 
letter, I should have been his companion on that 
journey ! My uncle was always fond of taking me 
with him. Dear good man, J was a great favorite 
of his!" 

The egotist rarely improves on any cutting hint, 
designed to check him in his offensive forwardness. 
Little change would you see in him, to-morrow, 
16* 



i86 A Man. 

tliongh you should, to-day, cause the Asiatic gene- 
ralization to ring in his ear, ^'He who has least 
wisdom has most vanity." Laughter, though really 
in ridicule, he construes into an expression of ap- 
plause ; and silence, though in fact the result of 
disgust, he regards as an evidence that he is the 
admired C3aiosure of all eyes. When the talk is 
discontinued, he flatters himself with the thought, 
that it has come to an end, because he, the great 
sun of the company, has stopped shining. 

I find on record a little anecdote concerning Ro- 
bert Hall, which illustrates the flattering eflect, 
produced, in many instances, even by the philoso- 
phic taciturnity of genius, on the mind of a con- 
ceited talker. Mr. Hall had, somewhere, become 
engaged in conversation with one of that class of 
dogmatic ministers whose c?o^-matism is, in Jerrold's 
phrase, '^' only puppy-isia come to its full growth." 
The minister having, afterward, met Mr. Jay, said 
to him, ^^ I wonder you think so highly of Mr. Hall's 
talents. I was some time ago traveling with him 
into Wales, and we had several disputes, and I more 
than once soon silenced him." 

Mr. Jay, not long after this interview, happened 
to meet Robert Hall ; and, on alluding to the ego- 
tistic minister who, notwithstanding his egotism, 
had become somewhat popular as a preacher, Mr. 
Hall replied, "^'I lately traveled with him, and it was 
wonderful, sir, how such a baggage of ignorance 
and confidence could have been squeezed into the 
vehicle. He disgusted and wearied me, with his 
dogmatism and perverseness, till God was good 
enough to enable me to go to sleep." 



Egotism. 187 

It may not be amiss to present, in this place, a 
summary of injudicious and unpleasant talkers. 
There is the gossiping talker, for whom Solon, un- 
doubtedly, meant that wise saying of his : ''Take 
care how you speak all you know." There is the 
loquacious or rambling talker, whom the Grecian 
sage Cleobulus, probably, had in mind, when he 
spoke the maxim: ''Many words and more igno- 
rance." To this talker may, also, be applied those 
w^ords from an Asiatic proverb : " Behold the drum ; 
notwithstanding all its noise, it is empty within." 
There is the egotistic talker, whom the admirable 
Chinese saying should teach a lesson : " True merit, 
like the pearl inside an oyster, is content to remain 
quiet till it finds an -opening." There is the mealy- 
mouthed talker. This person is ever wanting in 
personality. His thoughts are parasites, clinging 
to other men's ideas and opinions. He is so fond 
of being agreeable, that if he finds himself crossing 
a person's views, at the smallest angle, he will slip 
back, as quickly as he can, into a parallel of soft 
and sycophantic suavity. There is the affected talker, 
whose vocal organs are always artificially strained, 
like the strings of a fiddle, before they are trusted 
in company. There is the churlish talker. You 
have, often, met one of this class, in the form of a 
stiff-necked official ; and, sometimes, in that of a rail- 
road agent. There is, finally, the profane and obscene 
talker, for whom some wise man of Asia left the 
words: "Men, because of speech, have the advan- 
tage over beasts ; but brutes are preferable to men 
whose language is indecent." 



i88 A Man. . 

Now, in contrast with the foregoing list of dis- 
agreeable talkers, as a relief from the languor which 
the consideration of them may have caused you to 
experience, or to begin to experience, permit me to 
place before your mind, that charming luminary of 
society — the genial talker. To this social star, how 
much do you owe of the luster and the beauty of 
your memory's world ! By his chaste and kindly 
utterances, how often has he made hours which 
would have been dull to you, the most delightful in 
all your life ! Does he not soothe you, when you 
are weary, to a repose in which your lost vigor 
comes back ? Does he not kindle your blood, when 
it is cold ? Does he not cause you to complain less 
and rejoice more? Does he not instruct you, raise 
the tone of jouv thoughts, and make you better to 
live and better to die ? 

How does this person talk ? From a large loving 
soul, his words come. They always mean some- 
thing. They rarely refer to himself. They exhibit 
a manly modesty, a cheerful spirit, much prudence, 
much wisdom, and the beauty of simplicity 

Who has been the best pattern in conversation ? 
I do not find such a one among the philosophers of 
the past or of the present. For, though these, as an 
able writer says of Descartes, ''receive their intel- 
lectual wealth from nature, in solid bars rather than 
in current coin," yet it must be admitted that no 
philosopher has ever lived, whose love of solitary 
employment did not cause him to be either insufii- 
ciently intelligible or a little too silent in mixed 
company. I do not find such a one among ^he 



Egotism. 189 

poets ; for, though some of the most interesting of 
all men have been bards, yet no one of this class 
has been worthy to be called the best pattern in 
conversation. IsTor do I find such a one among 
statesmen. Burke, who was one of the greatest 
and worthiest of statesmen, said, with a beautiful 
figure, that ''the perfection of conversation is not 
to play a regular sonata, but, like the ^olian harp, 
to await the inspiration of the passing breeze." 
Burke, however, was not pre-eminently a pattern 
conversationist. I do not find such a one among 
those whose names history has celebrated and con- 
secrated, as the names of wise men ; for, though 
Socrates was, undoubtedly, the wisest man of his 
time, and was, certainly, a delightful talker, yet he 
should be considered a master in conversation, 
rather than the best pattern. I find such a one only 
among a small company of men who, from obscu- 
rity, went forth into public life, the pioneer pro- 
claimers of the religion of the Gospel. Yes, as the 
great exemplar in conversation, as in everything 
else pertaining to human expression, I would point 
to Jesus — the Master ! Never man spoke like this 
man ! How free was he from affectation ! How 
free from egotism ! How free from harshness, from 
inappropriate merriment, and from everything bor- 
dering on vulgarity ! When did Jesus speak amiss : 
What instance can you mention, in which he in- 
dulged, either in flippant loquacity or in idle gossip ? 
What occasion can you name, on w^hich he exhi- 
bited, in conversation, either the fire of malevolent 
passion or the weakness of a prejudiced mind ? 



I go A Man. 

Are you young, and would you know how to con- 
verse with learned men ? Read of the discourse 
which transpired in the Jerusalem temple, between 
the young Jesus and the Jewish doctors. Would 
you know how to converse in manhood? Learn 
how the Master talked, with friends and foes, with 
good men and bad men, with the wise and the 
foolish, while reclining at the table, while visiting 
the poor, while traveling from town to town, or 
while crossing the sacred waters of Palestine, in the 
performance of his mission of incomprehensible 
love ! 



Wit and Laughter. 191 



PAPER VII. 

WIT AND LAUGHTEK. 

Our social hours are what they could not be, but 
for the power which we possess, of extemporizing, 
at times, with laughable smartness. How much less 
hearty would be our health, how much earlier would 
be the time when we should have to throw off the 
fresh color of our faces, and sink into the great 
sleep, were w^e not able to play toss-and-catch, with 
witty sayings and witty replies ! Now and ever- 
more, let us be thankful for whatever ability to 
make each other laugh, God has kindly permitted 
us to inherit from our dear and tender mothers ! 

The value of wit cannot be told in a few words. 
One can, it is true, soon state what wit is, considered 
either as a talent or as a species of expression. But 
not so soon can he show what would become of us 
all, without it. There are moments in your life, if 
you are a person of wit, when by some simple jocu- 
lar utterance, which costs you nothing, you are able 
to command more immediate influence than a score 
of dollars could buy you. Only a well-timed and 
happy repartee, shot from the lips in a moment of 
peril, has often done for a man more than a body- 
guard of armed soldiers could have done for him. 
The suggestion may impress you, as somewhat fan- 
ciful, that the signers of the Declaration, when they 



192 A Man. 

had written their names to that paper of fate, were 
hardly prepared for the worst that was to come, till 
they had been made more cheerfully heroic by 
Franklin's far-famed little pnn. However, I do not 
deem it fanciful. ^'I^ow, gentlemen," said Frank- 
lin, " we must all hang together, or we will surely 
have to hang separately." But for this brave pun, 
Iw411 answer for it that Young America would have 
been less sure to ''fire the shot heard round the 
world." 

Your witty man never sinks in trouble's sea. He 
rides on the billows with a heart that is like a cork. 
Goldsmith tells us of a happy fellow — the happiest, 
he says, he ever knew^ — who, whenever he fell into 
any misery, usually called it ''seeing life." His 
father was a man of great wealth ; and wdien he 
made his will, his sons, one after another, received 
their portions, lugubriously exclaiming, as it was 
the custom to do : "Ah father ! may heaven give 
you life and health to enjoy it yourself! " At last, 
he turned to Dick, and said, "As for you, you have 
always been a sad dog ; you'll never come to good ; 
you'll never be rich ; I leave you a shilling to buy a 
halter." "Ah father ! " answered Dick, without any 
emotion, " may heaven give you life and health to 
enjoy it yourself! " 

Do you not believe that the human family would 
soon desire to become extinct, but for jollity and 
cachinnation ? Consider what have been the brio:htest 
moments, in your social experience of to-day, and 
what were the brightest moments in your social ex- 
perience of yesterday. It is not extravagant to 
affirm, that you have never been happj^, in human 



At the Table. 193 

society, for twenty-four successive hours, or for half 
as many, in despite of wit and laughter. You did 
not enjoy the stroll which you took, to-day or yes- 
terday, with your friend, unless he and you, the 
while, laughed joyously, at many a jeu d'esprity 
uttered either by you or by him. 



AT THE TABLE. 

Your last meal, supposing it to have been eaten 
by you without any lively talk, was not as pleasant 
and invigorating as it might have been. Eating 
and drinking, with no merriment, is like planting 
seeds under a barn. The physiologist will tell you, 
that the human stomach, when proceeding, natu- 
rally, in the process of digestion, has an activity of 
its own — a species of contractile movement — which 
commences soon after the food has been swallowed. 
N'ow, is it not reasonable to conclude, that this 
wholesome contractile movement of the digestive 
organ is best begun by the reflex influence of wit 
and laughter ? IsTo person, unless he is compelled, 
should allow himself to eat his meals, either silently 
or with haste. If he must do so, let me advise him 
not to take more than one meal a day. He should 
wait till his stomach has become so eager and pow- 
erful, that it can perform the task of incisors and 
grinders. 

Wit is eminently a provocative or relish-giver. 

Nothixig else can so well make simple eatables taste 

agreeably, and keep the appetite healthily sharp. 

Pickled cucumbers, pepper and pepper-sauce, radish, 

17 



194 A Man. 

mustard, nutmeg, and all the spices ever imported, 
are, in comparison with wit and laughter, only so 
many fashionable shams. Ah ! it is refreshing to 
see and hear those jolly eaters who cleverly loiter 
round the bases of their mountains of steak, or 
lazily dip and coast among the islands of their 
smoking archipelagoes of soup ! That our age is 
an age of fast people, there is sufficient proof 
afforded, in the haste with which men, generally, 
perform the duty they owe to their palates and 
digestive organs. It is little singular, that there 
are so many lean merchants and bankers, so many 
dyspeptic students, and so many short-lived teachers, 
preachers, and women, when stomachs are, almost- 
universally, required to do the work of teeth. 

The taciturn haste with which the American peo- 
ple eat, is a national sin. The English do not eat 
as we do ; and I know of no people that do. ^^They 
have," says Mr. Emerson in his English Traits, ''a 
vigorous health, and last well into middle and old 
age. The old men are as red as roses, and still 
handsome. A clear skin, a peach-bloom complexion, 
and good teeth, are found all over the island. They 
use a plentiful and nutritious diet. The operative 
cannot subsist on water-cresses. Beef, mutton, 
wheat bread, and malt liquors, are universal among 
the first-class laborers. Good feeding is a chief 
point of national pride among the vulgar ; and, in 
their caricatures, they represent the Frenchman as 

a poor, starved body They eat, and 

drink, and live jolly in the open air, putting a bar 
of solid sleep between day and day." 

Now, it is a lamentable fact, that, compared with 



At the Table. 195 

these Enghsh, we Americans eat, drink, live, and 
sleep, in modes that are ruinous to health. Robert 
Knox, of England, assumes, that '^ all Americans 
are undergoing a physical degeneration." An Ame- 
rican writer, discoursing brilliantly on the subject 
of " The New World and the ITew Man," * though 
he pronounces Mr. Knox a thinker, ^'of far more 
force than faculty, and of a singular avidity for ugly 
news," does not hesitate to saj^, that, ''in truth, we 
are a nation of health-hunters, betraying the want 
by the search ; " and that '' the land is full of wrecks 
hopelessly snagged on indigestible diet." Unless 
some of our pernicious customs and fashions, in re- 
spect to eating, are to be superseded, the time must 
come when we will be cursed with leanness. Dr. 
Johnson, in the days of his poverty, used — so Mr. 
Macaulay tells us — to ''tear his meat like a tiger, 
and swallow^ his tea in oceans." Not a few Ameri- 
cans, even in the days of their riches, eat meat and 
drink tea in like manner. At our tables, too many 
of us behave like skulking rogues, whose remorse- 
ful fears of an arrestment will not let them be jolly. 
But we have been well taught, that we should not 
do so. Learned physiologists have told us, that w^e 
should not eat silently and with haste ; but that w^e 
should be sociable, and merry, and long at our meals. 
Our eyes, while w^e sit at our tables, should shine 
with the effulgence of a jovial spirit, and our coun- 
tenances should glow with the warm blood, shaken 
into all the sanguineous vessels of the body, by 
painless spasms of kindly mirth. 

^ See the Atlantic Monthly, for October 1858. 



I q6 A Man. 



n. 

IN CONVERSATION. 

An effective plea for wit and laughter must needs 
embrace some special observations on tbeir value in 
conversation. There is rarely a long time in wliich 
we are not exhilarated and made to live more vigor- 
ously, because something witty is spoken. We are 
influenced by jokes, more than some of us like to 
own. ^'Genuine and innocent wit/' says Sydney 
Smith, ''is surely the flavor of the mind,'' N^ever do 
we, by wit alone, achieve large and lasting things ; 
but, without it, we are never so well fitted to achieve 
such things as we might be. It spurs us in our un- 
dertakings. It is a relief to us when we are weary. 
It enlivens us when we are dull and listless. ISTothing 
wonderful is it, to play the enchanter with some 
simple matter of fact, or to snap some common 
thought inside out, so that, for a moment, it shall 
sparkle with a magical meaning. But what a youth- 
ful freshness and what a genial warmth, this kind 
of harmless intellectual sport imparts to jaded 
human natures ! 

JSTearly all people are naturally fond of wit. There 
is, it is admitted, a class, by whom it is utterly dis- 
claimed. To defend it is, in their judgment, a sin. 
They seem to like nothing so well as old truths 
which have no more life in them than so many 
treasured fragments of Egyptian mummies. They 
make the summiim honum or sovereign good of man 
to be, in Jeremy Bentham's phrase, '' This thing, 
and that thing, and the other thing ; any thing but 



In Conversation. 1 97 

pleasure; the Irisliniaii's apple-pie made of nothing 
but quinces." But the most of these ungenial peo- 
ple will, I think, be found to have a love of witty 
talk and cordial laughter, whenever they happen to 
be in company where liberal common sense is domi- 
nant. The man who will not be mirthful, at his own 
table or in his own town, may abound with jocular 
sayings, while riding in a stage-coach, on a long and 
dreary road, a hundred miles from home. There 
are few persons that are not, often, in that maudlin 
mood, described by Washington Irving, as ^^the 
mood in which a little wit goes a great way." A 
gloomy ascetic would, undoubtedly, enjoy an hour 
with a witty man, should the two be overtaken by a 
shower of rain, and should they sit down to talk 
under a tree. Let any one of those individuals who 
think it so great a sin to laugh, be found ready to 
drown, and be happily rescued; and, though he 
should be miserably wet, his tongue would, pro- 
bably, scatter cheerful sayings all the way home. 
Could you not cure a fun-despising deacon of his 
sanctimonious gravity, if you could persuade him 
to sail over the ocean and back, in excellent jolly 
company ? 

Consider how many fine jokes are uttered at every 
tick of the clock ! Here is a group of merry people, 
and there is one. l^obody counts the number of 
their sallies of humor, and of their brilliant repartees. 
If all the jocular talk of the common men and wo- 
men around us should be put on record, what pages 
would be given us, over which to smile and laugh ! 
The newspapers serve to show us how many witty 
persons there are among ordinary persons, and how a 
17* 



igS A Man. 

quick sportive turn may give a charm to the dullest 
of subjects. Are there not a hundred pleasant old 
mothers that have said things as laughable and 
keen, as are some of the best sayings of Jerrold ? 

You may be certain, that you have, more than 
once, been so situated as to behold a circle of talkers 
whose intercourse was greatly wanting in vivacity. 
Every word spoken, seemed to you to come from 
lips which had not sufficient elasticity, fairly to put 
it forth. '' Vox faucihus Jieesit'' — the voice stuck in 
the throat. There were faint responses, tedious 
hesitations, forced smiles, a feigned earnestness, and 
frequent yawns. Irksome and even painful was the 
talk, to those who participated in it ; and thus it was 
especially to you whom I am considering as but a 
spectator of the scene. But, by-and-by, you found, 
that a happy change had taken place in that group. 
A social star had suddenly appeared. The conver- 
sation was, thereafter, lively and enticing. Dullness 
and listlessness were gone. Instead of feeble, spirit- 
less utterances, separated by intervals of soporific 
taciturnity, there were silver sounds that were like 
beautiful chirpings. Instead of a dearth of ideas, 
there was an abundant supply of them. The pain- 
ful stupor had been superseded by a wholesome 
animation. The features of each speaker seemed 
to co-operate with his voice, in telling some happy 
incident, or in giving expression to some laughable 
fancy. Do you ask what was the cause of the de- 
lightful and remarkable change ? It was the talent 
for wit, exercised by some person who knew how to 
exercise it well. 



Before the Audience. 199 



III. 

BEPORE THE AUDIENCE. 

The value of wit and laughter will not less clearly 
appear to you, in your recollections of the platform. 
You have seen an assembly of drowsy auditors. 
Deeply did their speaker impress them — that is, he 
impressed them deeply^ with his dull look and tedious 
delivery. Profoundly were they interested — that 
is, they were interested profoundly in their own re- 
veries. An unbroken stillness prevailed throughout 
the audience — but it was a stillness indicating a dis- 
position, on their part, to go to sleep. Many eyes 
were fixed on the speaker — but they were fixed on 
him with a half-conscious gaze, resembling that 
with which grave and silent owls are accustomed to 
look intently at nothing. All that were present 
seemed to feel the power of the discourse — that is, 
its power to lull them into a state of lethargic indif- 
ference. 

Let me now remind you of some instance, 
calculated to show, in a positive instead of a 
negative manner, the importance of that subtile 
means of mental wakefulness, without which oratory 
is never, for a long time, perfectly acceptable. It 
is not improbable that, in the course of your mixed 
experience, you have been favored with more than 
one opportunity of seeing an audience pass imme- 
diately out of that state into which an exercise of 
stupefying declamation had brought them, and en- 
ter that state of happy excitement into which the 
fervor and the sparkle of genuine eloquence never 



200 A Man. 

fail to bring the minds of people. Speaker A., who 
made his hearers dull and weary, was followed by 
speaker B., who thoroughly roused and electrified 
the same assembly. The latter part of a scene like 
this, of an irksome harangue, followed by an exhi- 
bition of pleasing and powerful oratory, could not 
but have a wonderful charm, even if it were not 
hightened in its attractiveness by the effect of con- 
trast. Consider a few of the interesting points it 
would be likely to exhibit. 

An audience, representing every species of tem- 
perament and taste, are leaning toward one radiant 
man, breathlessly eager to catch his slightest utter- 
ances. They are as flexible to his power, as a field 
of grain is to the summer w^ind. When he will, he 
extorts tears from them; and when he will, he 
extorts laughter. ISTow they sit before him, still as 
death ; now they almost deafen him with peals of 
rapturous applause. Like Antiphon, the Eham- 
nusian, this man can '^ cure distempers of the mind 
with words." The splendid being ! how everybody 
loves him ! 

Valuable, indeed, must be that means of exhila- 
ration which enables a person thus to affect a great 
audience. But, valuable as it is, the name of it is 
wit. I do not say, that by wit alone a person can 
accomplish so much ; but that, without wit, so much 
cannot be accomplished. ISTothing can take the 
place of this before the audience, and be as good as 
this. Earnestness cannot; for, if continuous, it is 
tiring. The eye soon becomes weary looking at 
the sun. Logic cannot; for logic has not sufficient 
sparkle to sustain a lively wakefulness. Wit, though 



Before the Audience. 201 

not one of tlie most precious^ is certainly one of the 
most valuable things in the world ; and he who would 
deny this, belongs either to that class who have no 
wit, or to that class who absurdly blink its import- 
ance. 

To the platform lecturer, whatever sterling wit 
he possesses, has a value which he is not likely to 
over-estimate. The mixed audience of the lyceum 
hall will not attentively lend their ears, unless 
charmed by this element of effectiveness. The 
literary orator should endeavor to do much more 
than accommodate himself to the demands of the 
critic. He should seek to entertain ears which will 
not be content with utterances wise and serious 
only. The thoughts which he expresses should be 
made to twinkle like the stars; and, at times, he 
should cause an idea to flash into sight which is not 
an idea, but only a literary meteor, to be valued for 
little more than its trail of fleeting brilliance. He 
will, then, be able to amuse, while he imparts in- 
struction to the audience. 

It is undeniable, that what may serve admirably 
for a prize essay, may not well serve for a lyceum 
lecture. Attentive ears and grateful countenances 
are favors which nothing can so readily secure as a 
little genuine and timely wit. IsTot one of us likes 
to listen long to a dissertation which is entirely 
grave. We all prefer frequently to be enlivened 
and made more comfortable in our seats. We do 
not, it is true, require of all speakers the same pro- 
portion of exhilarating and recreative mirth. Our 
demand for wit varies to correspond with the antici- 
pated style of the one who is to address us. But 



202 A Man. 

are not the instances few in which we go twice to 
hear the literary lecturer who gives no wit in return 
for his hearer's admission-fee ? "We are unpleasantly 
disappointed, especially when genius fails to afibrd 
lis the felicity of a few snatches from its lips of in- 
tellectual spice and pepper. From genius we expect 
expressions of fine humor which shall shake our 
sides ; and, if we do not receive them, we are apt 
sullenly to retire. Do we not ahvays look for ec- 
centric things from noted, popular persons ? Little 
would Socrates have charmed the G-recian young 
men, had he not talked singularly as well as wisely. 
Mr. Shillaber succeeds best on the platform, when 
he appears less like Mr. Shillaber than like Mrs. 
Partington. 

IV. 

DULLNESS. 

If there is a class of people who do not possess 
any talent for wit, or who would find it extremely 
difficult to prove that they do, we may well wish 
fairly to understand the nature of the case in which 
there is so great a deficiency. What, then, let us 
inquire, are some of the peculiarities of the person 
who rarely, if ever, is able to say anything that is 
keen and magical ? In answer, it may be affirmed, 
that this person is, in company, either stupidly 
taciturn or tediously wordy. He is like a spring 
whose contents are too much mixed with mud or 
too much diluted with rain-water to sparkle. But 
this is not the only thing in nature which the person 
may be justly said to resemble. Men, in not a few 
respects, are like birds. Some birds are interesting, 



Dullness. 203 

and some are not; some are witty, and some are 
not; some have chirping tongues, and some have 
songless tongues. Eagles, hawks, humming-birds, 
crows, snipes, larks, partridges, pigeons, bobolinks 
— these all have points which are illustrative of 
human characteristics. May not this have been the 
reason why the two orders of bipeds were associated 
in that old couplet wdiich, in our early school-days, 
was written for a copy in our little writing-books, 

"Many men of many minds, 
Many birds of many kinds?'' 

There is one bird which may be said to have no wit. 
It is the owl — that bird which is pained by a swal- 
low's twitter in the day-time, and which has a dole- 
ful hoot for the night. The owl makes many 
ludicrous gestures, but is never known to make either 
a witty attack or a witty repartee. How many a 
man resembles the owl ! Does the person without 
wit make an agreeable appearance in society ? ISTo ; 
because he is too much like the owl. Does he ever 
enliven and rejuvenate you when you are weary? 
No ; because he is too owlish. "Would you be content 
to have him for your bosom-friend, for your com- 
panion on a long journey, or for your right-hand 
neighbor at a dinner-table ? No ; because there is 
too much of the owl in him. 

There is no term in our language so significant of 
stupidity as the little adjective witless. It were 
better to be a jolly rustic than a bookworm without 
wit, for as much reason as you would pronounce a 
plain brown mug more valuable than a Leyden jar, 
out of which you could never draw an electric spark. 



204 A Man. 

So important an element is wit in a person's 
mental constitution, that those qualities which in- 
sure a manly self-possession have, for centuries, 
borne, in common parlance, the name of wits. What 
do people say of him who becomes utterly confused 
in a moment when coolness and calm decision are 
wanted ? Simply that he has lost his wits. What 
is usually the remark concerning a man who has 
allowed himself to be duped to believe some wild 
doctrine, or to espouse the Utopian scheme of some 
hair-splitting theorizer ? Simply that he has been 
fooled out of his wits. When a freshman or a sopho- 
more fails in the examination or on the platform, 
what has he to expect from his class-fellows sooner 
than the distressing interrogatory, ^^ Where were 
your wits?'' When a young man becomes so em- 
barrassed in the company of ladies, that his heart 
flutters, and he knows not what he is about, stam- 
mers, blunders, makes a worse blunder in the at- 
tempt to repair his last one, runs awkwardly against 
his neighbor, stumbles over chairs and other things, 
and cannot sufficiently collect himself to offer an 
appropriate apology for any one of his ungallant 
mistakes, who that sees him is not ready to say, 
''You stupid fellow ! what has become of your wits f 

It may, therefore, be presumed that there is some- 
thing in the very nature of wit which makes it indis- 
pensable to a terse and energetic behavior. There is a 
great difference in mind, between the man who walks 
the street briskly, and the man who walks the street 
heavily. There is, also, a great difference in mind, 
between two persons, one of whom exhibits a talent 
for wit, and the other not. It is nothing unimport- 



Affected Gravity. 205 

ant to be able to spice the hour of miscarried expec- 
tation witli enlivening mirth, or to turn an embarass- 
ing accident into a blessing by the smart snap of some 
vrell-timed joke. He who possesses this power, in 
only a small measure, may reasonably regret that 
he has no more of it ; and he who possesses it not 
at all, is either provokingly obtuse or intolerably 
tedious. 

The talent for wit is to the mind, in some respects, 
what the microscope is to the eye. This talent 
enables a person to see bright points in things, 
which, in the absence of it, would exhibit little that 
would be either worthy of notice or productive of 
pleasure. You have observed the attractive cha- 
racter which that common insect, the fly, presents, 
when it is viewed through the microscopic glass, 
Wliat a unique little body it then is ! So, the per- 
son of genuine wit discovers a striking brilliance, 
where the person without it discovers nothing but 
dullness, dullness, dullness. The former makes a 
trite idea seem to you so charming, that your mind 
seizes it as a fine treasure ; the latter makes a trite 
idea seem to you still more trite. Talking on topics 
the least attractive, the former would keep you 
gladly wakeful ; talking on topics the most enticing, 
the latter would either exhaust your patience or put 
you to sleep. 

V. 

AFFECTED GRAVITY. 

After that class of persons who seem to be entirely 
wanting in wit, come next the class that possess the 
power of expressing thought and feeling in witty 
18 



2o6 A Man. 

modes, but who are unwilling to admit its value. 
They are unwisely serious, affectedly grave. The 
saying is ascribed to Bolingbroke, that, as in comedy 
the best actor plays the part of the droll, while some 
scrub is made the hero or fine gentleman ; so in the 
farce of life, wise men pass much of their time in 
mirth, while fools only are always grave. If the 
talent for wut is valuable, it should certainly be cul- 
• tivated and used. A man should not treat it as 
Hudibras is said to have done. 

" Although he had much wit, 



He was very shy of using it/^ 

A great many people are indisposed to acknow- 
ledge any value in wut, because it is airy and evanes- 
cent in its nature ; or because, as a certain writer 
has said, it is '^ike those volatile essences, w^hich, 
being too delicate to bear the open air, evaporate 
almost as soon as they are exposed to it." They 
deem it unmanly to seek either influence or plea- 
sure, in the exercise of a talent, the effects of which 
are so fleeting. Here, they greatly err. The very 
circumstance that wit is volatile and evanescent, is 
what gives it its peculiar value. Men commit a sad 
mistake, when, from the generalization, that firm 
and lasting things are valuable, they infer that light 
and transient things are never so. A particle of 
crystalized carbon is more valuable than a thousand 
cubic inches of air; but would you say, that, in 
comparison with crystalized carbon, air is worthless ? 
If you should ask a man whom some terrible catas- 
trophe has almost buried alive, which of the two he 
would give the most for, do you think he would an- 



Affected Gravity. 207 

swer, ''The diamond?" Hydrogen is the lightest 
of all known gases ; but is hydrogen, for this reason, 
wanting in value ? The truth is, that the value of 
every substance in the material world, and of every 
means of influence not essentially bad in the moral 
world, is to be determined from the result or results 
which it contributes to produce. Ether, in itself, is 
comparatively an unsubstantial and useless fluid ; 
but where could a substitute be found for it, in its 
valuable compounds ? Precisely so, should we rea- 
son concerning wit. It is valuable, chiefly, for those 
eftects which it is the means of producing. It is a 
good thing, on account of certain other good things 
to which it directly gives rise. 

We freely admit, that wit is not firm and long- 
lasting in its essence. W"e concede, that it is even 
so far from containing anything permanently excel- 
lent, as to lose much of its peculiar force, the mo- 
ment it seems other than subtile and evanishing. 
Nothing is more true than that wit, in order to 
maintain its character, must be free from any show 
of elaboration. Let the idea be associated with a 
brilliant joke, that it was long premeditated, and 
you would be unwilling to give it your laugh. 
Hence, ''we receive," says one of the metaphysi- 
cians, " more pleasure from a witty repartee than a 
witty attack." 

But, notwithstanding these concessions, no 
thoughtful person will conclude, that wit is not one 
of the most valuable things in the world. Will you 
please tell me what could take its place in conversa- 
tion ? Will you please show me what could be a 
substitute for it, before the audience ? Is it not the 



2o8 A Man. 

very sparkle of sociality ? Is it not the very magic 
of oratory? If you Iiave never been able to see 
how these things are so, let me ask you to think, 
for a moment, of the pains of dullness, and then of 
the pleasures of wit. Consider the contrast between 
a sprightly talk and a tedious one — one in which no 
illuminated features participate — one in which the- 
vocal organs of each speaker sound as if they were 
clogged with unmoistened meal. Consider the con- 
trast between an attentive and enraptured audience 
and an audience composed of individuals who sit 
in misery on their seats ; who wish their seats were 
beds provided with pillows ; who, if they look at 
their speaker at all, look either with vacant eyes or 
to see how near he may be to his sequel ; and who, 
if they nod during the discourse, do it, not as a 
token of intelligent assent, but because they are 
forced to do it by the soporific harangue of the long 
hour. Having thus assured yourself how great a 
difference there is between cases of intercourse, 
both in private and in public, in which the enliven- 
ing influence of wit is felt, and cases in which it is 
not present to be felt, I am sure that you will see 
the almost inestimable value of this simple means 
of engaging the human mind. You will, then, be a 
better friend of wit. You will welcome it, in others, 
with a heartier gusto ; and you will, perhaps, be led 
to cultivate, more attentively, whatever talent for 
wit you yourself possess. 



The Sportive and the Serious. 209 

THE SPORTIVE AND THE SERIOUS. 

There is a class of people who are blind to the 
value of Avit and laughter, because the effects of 
these are, in their judgment, incompatible with the 
design of making serious and permanent impres- 
sions on the mind. The mistake of these people 
demands special attention. 

True wit serves to produce a delightful and salu- 
tary exhilaration of the mind. It excites happy 
laughter. Drowsiness is dispelled by it, and vfeari- 
ness is relieved. But it may be both appropriately 
and inappropriately employed. There is no place 
that will answer for everything ; and there is no- 
thing that will answer for every place. Wit is subject 
to a view of propriety, similar to that which tends to 
regulate every means of influence. This view con- 
templates the preservation of its efi:ectiveness, as 
the instrument of a wholesome intellectual anima- 
tion. It assumes, that the talent for wit should be 
restrained, whenever the exercise of this talent is 
likely to result in more harm than good. But there 
is a certain erroneous and absurd view of propriety, 
which contemplates very different restrictions to the 
talent for wit. It is formed and held, in despite of 
the plain remonstrances of common sense. Accord- 
ing to this view, the use of wit is decided to be in- 
appropriate, in many cases in which its effects could 
not but be both pleasing and profitable. It is not a 
little surprising, how people are led by prejudice, to 
overlook the real wants of human nature. ~We hear 
18* 



210 A Man. 

it said, that the wittiest men are not the best 
thinkers ; and that the talent for keen wit and the 
talent for intense thought are not apt harmoniously 
to co-exist. This conclusion is reached by a course 
of fallacious reasoning on undisputed facts. Thought- 
fulness and gravity, it is said, are usually found to- 
gether. AVe freely concede that they are. Great 
thinkers are serious. So was Pythagoras, Socrates, 
Phito, Confucius, Luther, and iTewton. Washington 
was a serious man. In his pictured face is a look 
significant of something beyond this world. All the 
great poets have been serious. So was Dante, Milton, 
Collins, Cowper, and, I suppose, Shakspeare. It is 
impossible for the mind that is profoundly thought- 
ful, not to be, at times, profoundly sad. ''An unde- 
vout astronomer," says Edward Young, ''is mad." 
Beethoven, the musical composer, was a person 
whom few found it easy to approach. He remained 
aloof from fashionable company. He would not be 
flattered. He, too, was sad. Handel, another musi- 
cal composer, knew the felicity of social hours ; but 
he was most pleased with a serious joy. When 
questioned once, concerning his experience, while 
he was composing the Allelujah chorus, he an- 
swered: "I did think I did see all heaven before 
me, and the great God himself." While he was 
setting to music those words of the prophet: "He 
is despised and rejected of men," a friend entered 
the room, and found him actually sobbing. Handel's 
servant used to behold the tears of his master min- 
gling with the very ink with which he wrote his 
compositions. 
Now, this tendency of the thoughtful mind to a 



The Sportive and the Serious. 211 

devotional seriousness, is one of which we should 
softly and tenderly speak. Let us respect the person 
of serene and solemn moods. Most sublime visions 
may, oftener than we know, be rolling in that sad 
soul ! There is a wide difference between pensive- 
ness and gloomy dejection. If we separate from our 
conception of a great mind, the idea of a beautiful 
melancholy investing it, even as the shadow of a 
vast forest falls back on that forest and darkens its 
foliage, our conception will begin to lose its power 
over us. You will find, that this truth has been 
borne in mind, by the painters and the sculptors of 
the ages. You can distinguish the representations 
of the god Jupiter from those of the god Bacchus, 
in all the famed galleries of art, if by nothing else, 
by their difference in depth of countenance. Jupiter 
always seems as if looking back into his own fathom- 
less being, and meditating some divine purpose ; 
w^hile Bacchus, on the contrary, seems to have lost 
the consciousness of his godhood, and to be musing 
on festal pleasures. It is a law, with the experienced 
artist, to represent superior character in lineaments 
indicative of a mysterious serenity. Angels are 
never pictured in a frolic. It lessens our veneration 
for a man of genius, to have to think of him as con- 
tinually mirthful. I cannot conceive, that Homer, 
Ossian, and Milton, were noted for jocularity. The 
soul that has most of the " divine hunger," is most 
in earnest. ^' Great men," said Aristotle, ''are al- 
ways of a nature originally melancholy." 

But the mind needs change of occupation. It 
should not be jaded. Thought is better than mirth; 
devoutness is better than mirth ; yet mirth has its 



212 A Man. 

value. Surely, you will not be heard to say, that, 
in all our life, we should never be as merry as we 
like. Think what a world -this would be — what a 
charming world ! — if all the pious people in it were 
to meet some day, and unanimously agree that there 
should be no more sportive subtilty or smartness ; 
that it is wrong ^' to laugh and grow fat" — entirely 
wrong ; .that every ounce of flesh gained by mirth 
and cachinnation, is so much wicked flesh, for which 
a person should do penance in fasting and prayer ! 
"Were the various Christian parties to agree to such 
a conclusion, Christianity would soon be driven out 
of the world. Do you think that God is pleased to 
see sullen faces moving under his laughing skies ? 
Is there a passage between the first word of Genesis 
and the Amen of the Apocalypse, that forbids cheer- 
fulness and innocent mirth ? Is it not a serious sin, 
not to be always cheerful and sometimes mirthful ? 
Do you not see, that when a person bids adieu to 
gladness, good humor, bright smiles, and cordial 
merriment, he then bids adieu to painless digestion, 
dreamless sleep, the bloom of health, and the best 
of his ability to be either agreeable or useful ? What 
a world this is, in which so many are called orthodox 
Christians, who never perform the great duty of 
ascertaining the real wants of human nature ! Peo- 
ple say, that wit is incompatible with thoughtfulness 
and devoutness, as if thinkers should always be 
thinking, and pious folks always be solemn ! They 
overlook the important truth, that the most profound 
mind needs its hours of relaxation — needs to have 
stations, here and there, at which its trains of thought 
may stop. A man may think so much as to lose his 



The Sportive and the Serious. 213 

appetite and his power to sleep. He may think so 
much as to become frightfully lean. A man may 
be absurdly pious. He that is sanctimoniously op- 
posed to wit and laughter, dishonors Christianity. 
Jesus did not propose to increase the number of 
grave and crabbed dyspeptics on the earth. "Would 
you love Jesus, if he had said to men, that all laughter 
is wickedness, and that wit is a cursed thing ? God 
made man capable of mirth; and the Scriptures 
nowhere tell us, that he was ever sorry he had made 
him so. 

It must, however, be admitted, that the talent 
for wit is exceedingly liable to be misexercised. 
This is evident, if from nothing else, from the fact, 
that the man of wit may be a satirist. There are 
two classes of witty sayings — the jocular and the 
satiric. He who employs the former class, aims 
chiefly at pleasure. He places before the mind, 
ideas and images which are precisely adapted to 
call forth the burst of glad laughter. His Avit is 
electric. It affords a relief from the weariness at- 
tendant on reflections which are wanting in variety, 
and creates an interest in thoughts and subjects 
which would be uninviting. It assists all the facul- 
ties of the mind. It quickens the memory, kindles 
the imagination, and gives mobility to the feelings. 
Under its influence, the more trite topics are made 
engaging, and the dryest details attractive. It is a 
sure antidote to irksomeness. It saves the author 
from the charge of a monotonous gravity, gives the 
lecturer power over the attention of his audience, 
enables the preacher to proclaim old and homely 
truths with an edge, and to keep his hearers from 



214 A Man. 

drowsing during a sermon. It is useful, but not 
precious. Truth, virtue, wisdom, reason, charity — 
neither of these can so safely be spared as jocular 
wit. It is not holy, and will not often answer in 
sanctified places ; but it is entirely compatible with 
both the desire and the possession of holiness. It 
is better than dullness, better than listlessness, bet- 
ter than corroding care. To the mind, it is, in 
many instances, what fresh air is to the lungs. Such 
is jocular wit. 

In regard to the other class of witty sayings — 
those which have been designated as satiric — it 
may be said, that wit is, here, presented in a new 
light. It is no longer merely the expression of ex- 
hilarating ideas — the out-flashing of a playful fancy's 
harmless fireworks. It is employed for the purpose 
of arming with stinging points the arrows of ridi- 
cule. When rightly directed, it subserves many 
good ends. It puts a salutary check on conceit, 
makes dogmatic and canting fanaticism appear ludi- 
crous, causes vanity to rub the paint ofi'her cheeks, 
compels affectation to discard her airs, and holds 
up to contemptuous laughter every form of aristo- 
cratic imbecility, of bold pretension, or of gilded 
wantonness. 

Such is the use which is made of this species of 
wit by the genuine satirist. But there is a class of 
witty men who emplo}^ it for sinister purposes. By 
these its shafts are directed against truth and worth, 
good people and good institutions. They are men 
who seem to take little pleasure in the established 
order of things. They are snarling critics ; they 
are producers of discord ; they seek success in satir- 



The Sportive and the Serious. 215 

izing the weak points of the successful — fame in 
ridiculing the foibles of the famous. These masters 
of keen sarcasm are ever burning with a jealousy of 
prosperous merit. Akenside's reputation suffered 
from the poisoned arrows of Smollett ; and Chris- 
tianity was injured by the polished sneers of Yol- 
taire. The ribald scorn of Archilochus caused Ly- 
cambes, his offender in a love affair, to hang himself. 
Gabriel Harvey had his Tom Nash ; Scott, of Am- 
well, his Dr. Kenrick ; and Robertson, Blair, Kames, 
and Henry, their Grilbert Stuart. Socrates affirmed, 
before his judges, that ^'his persecution originated 
in the licensed raillery of Aristophanes, which had 
so unduly influenced the popular mind during seve- 
ral years." Such satirists appear to have but one 
work — that of undermining vf ell-founded reputation ; 
and but one joy — the joy which vents its sardonic 
laughter when talent is wounded, or when genius is 
put to grief. ''Witty calumny and licentious rail- 
lery," says the author of '' Curiosities of Literature," 
''are airy nothings that float about us, invulnerable 
from their very nature, like those chimeras of hell 
which the sword of ^neas could not pierce — yet 
these shadows of truth, these false images, these 
fictitious realities, have made heroism tremble, 
turned the eloquence of wisdom into folly, and 
bowed down the spirit of honor itself." 

But the fact that the talent for wit may be wrongly 
exercised, is no reason why it should be depreciated. 
The sportive may be happily used in connection 
with the serious. Reason teaches this. It is a lesson 
which is, also, inculcated by history. You might 
find a hundred persons, more or fewer, in almost 



21 6 A Man. 

every churcli, who have never thought how much 
better a little sparkle from the preacher would be 
than a great deal of drowsiness in the audience. 
Eighteen hundred and thirty years ago, there were 
Jews who put on sanctimonious airs and tried to 
quarrel with the genial Jesus, because, in opposition 
to their absurd formalism, he presumed to minister to 
the sick on the Sabbath day, and to dine with pub- 
licans and sinners. Similar to the spirit of those 
Jews, is that of the grave sectaries and bigots, of this 
day, who frown on the face that beams with sunny 
smiles, and who regard with displeasure the ringing 
echo of joyous laughter. These persons, as Thomas 

Hood says, 

^Hhink they^re pious, 
When they^re only bilious/^ 

The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table fancies that 
one of them '^ would cut his kitten's tail ofl' if he 
were to catch her playing with it." As if it were 
not God's will that kittens should play as they like ! 

Dear man of religion ! be not ascetically grave in 
thy looks and thy words ! Do not, like Mrs. Yorke, 
of whom Charlotte Bronte speaks in her story of 
Shirley, think that "to be mirthful is to be profane, 
and to be cheerful is to be frivolous." Be thou 
sweet-hearted ! Do not always deserve to be called, 
in Irving's phrase, " one of those dry old gentlemen 
that keep youngsters at bay." Dr. Johnson is said 
to have asserted, that he never knew a villain in his 
life that was not, on the whole, an unhappy dog. 
But thou, good man, what reason hast thou, in this 
beautiful and glorious world, to be unhappy? 



The Sportive and the Serious. 217 

Religion, divorced from common sense, always 
receives the cold shoulder of the world. Its devotion 
is called fanaticism ; its humility, degradation ; its 
holiness, delusion. Not such was the religion of 
Milton. This great man was blind. Sometimes he 
was mournfully meditative ; but how manly, how 
liberal, how true to nature and to nature's God, are 
his views ! He depreciates nothing in man that was 
ever good. Hear him sing, in that exquisite poem, 
the '^L'Allegro," 

"But come, thou goddess, fair and free, 
In Heaven, yclept Euphrosyne, 
And by men, heart-easing mirth. 
•)^ ^ ^' ^ -jf 

Haste thee. Nymph, and bring with thee, 

Jest and youthful jollity, 

Quips, and cranks, and wanton wiles, 

Nods, and becks, and wreathed smiles, 

Such as hang on Hebe^s cheek. 

And love to live in dimple sleek; 

Sport that wrinkled Care derides. 

And Laughter holding both his sides. 

Come, and trip it as you go, 

On the light fantastic toe.^^ 

It can hardly be doubted that wit may be appro- 
priately employed even in the pulpit. With great 
effect, Robert Hall, Rowland Hill, Whitefield, and 
Lorenzo Dow, made it subserve the high and sacred 
end of preaching. '^ When I was young," said a 
minister, " I thought it was the thunder that killed 
the people ; but when I became older and wiser, I 
discovered that it was the lightning. So I deter- 
mined to thunder less and lighten more." 
19 



^i8 A Man. 

VII. 

THE WITLING. 

Suitably to blend the sportive with the serious, in 
the social hour, before the audience, and in compo- 
sition, is an art in which few persons excel. Wit 
should always coexist with judgment. That the 
two coexist so rarely is a fact much to be deplored. 
^^ Memory and wit," says Lord Kames, ^'are often 
conjoined; solid judgment seldom with either." 
This truth suggests some observations on the liability 
of the witty man to an excessive use of the fine 
talent which he possesses. Let this man bear in 
mind, that the occasions are numerous on which he 
ought to appear imperturbably grave. It is obvious 
that prayers should never contain anything intended 
for mirth; and, also, that some little time should 
always be allowed to pass, after grace is said at the 
table, before the eaters begin ^^to laugh and grow 
fat." Wit is, in nearly every instance, inappro- 
priately used when used for its own sake. A good 
postillion is not wont to crack his whip-lash simply 
that he may hear it crack ; and a wise talker or a 
wise orator is not accustomed to utter laughable 
sayings, as if these were, in themselves, among the 
best things in the world. 

Sydney Smith, whose name has become famous as 
that of a master of wit, says, that ^'professed wits, 
though they are generally courted for the amuse- 
ment they aiford, are seldom respected for the quali- 
ties they possess." He himself both taught and 



The Witling. 219 

practiced the precept, that, in the use of wit, we 
should never over-estimate its intrinsic importance. 
There is nothing absurd in the idea, that a thing 
may be very valuable, and, at the same time, be in 
itself a thing of low order. Let me illustrate this 
statement. 

A good appetite is to be highly valued by every 
man — so highly, indeed, that he should be grateful 
w^ho can never look w^ith indifference on freshly- 
cooked slices of tender steak, or on steaming dishes 
of relishable soup. But who that possesses an 
elevated mind does not always regard his appetite, 
how valuable soever it may be to him, as a thing of 
which it will not do to speak in the choicest terms 
of praise? All people of respectability unite in 
ranking gluttons and topers w^ith beasts ; but glut- 
tons and topers are only such as esteem and indulge 
apj)etite for appetite's sake. 

Again ; when a builder is constructing a house, he 
puts up temporary frames, called scaffolds, which 
are so valuable, that, without them, houses could 
scarcely be built much higher than men's heads. 
But for how little are transient scaffolds to be prized 
in themselves ! 

May we not, in like manner, reason concerning 
wit ? Considered intrinsically, it is little worth ; but 
considered in the light of those salutary effects 
which it is the means of producing, its value appears 
incalculable. Thus viewed, it is certainly the sine 
qua non of some of the best things in the world. 

You wdll now^ perceive the folly of the person who 
devotes himself to the art of manufacturing tor- 



220 A Man. 

pedoes of jocularity. The mere witling is to be re- 
garded with contempt. He who can attract notice 
by nothing better than sparkle, is only worthy to 
be called a human fire-fly. The number of a man's 
sportive sayings should be regulated somewhat as 
the tradesman regulates the amount of perishable 
commodities he buys — that is, by the demand of 
the market. 

The species of jesting which is denounced by St. 
Paul, in the fourth verse of the fifth chapter of his 
Epistle to the Ephesians, is, undoubtedly, foolish 
jesting ; * jesting out of time and out of place ; the 
jesting of the witling whose laughter is like ^'the 
crackling of thorns under a pot." And did not the 
apostle manifest wisdom in leaving a word against 
this abase of a talent naturally good ? But Paul was 
no cynic saint. Would you say, that he meant to 
denounce all jollity ? Would you say, that he him- 
self did not sometimes enjoy a hearty laugh, even 
as much as did our good George Washington ? 
Paul knew that true religion is opposed to all grim- 
ness, all ascetic taciturnity, all superstitious bush- 
ings of laughter, and all sanctimonious moanings. 
He knew that no day is necessarily made drearier 
by its influence ; and that it necessarily robs no 
voice of the chirp of cheerfulness. He knew, fur- 
thermore, that it gibbets no true diversions, comes 
never in the way of innocent and appropriate con- 
viviality, imposes no embargo on manly joking, and 
requires of no man repentance ''in sackcloth and 
ashes" for having laughed like a boy. 



See Hand-Book of the Bible, by Joseph Angus, p. 191. 



Laughter. 221 



vin. 

LAUGHTER. 

True wit, appropriately employed, is wonderfully 
effective as a means of keeping the human mind 
vigorous, clear, and cheerful. To laugh is good for 
us ; and laughter is the triumph of wit. The human 
face has one class of wrinkles on which it is a plea- 
sure to look ; and they are produced by the cordial 
expression of mirth. If you would know whether a 
person's disposition is genial or morose, look at the 
corners of his mouth. See whether happy curves 
and furrows are or are not there. Honest laughter 
will give a charm to the homeliest physiognomy. 

Among all the things in which both the useful 
and the agreeable are combined, what is more inte- 
resting than a laugh that is a laugh ? Do you like 
those persons who seem to eat their own lips ? Do 
you like those persons whose ^'ha ! ha ! " is only an 
expression of bitter scorn ? Somebody has said, that 
"Si laugh, like a thing of beauty, is a joy forever.'' 
It is certainly a joy in the moment of its expression. 

True laughter is noble. It is something of which 
no creatures under the sun, except men, women, 
and children, are capable. Brute animals cannot 
laugh. You could not draw a laugh out of a dog or a 
horse if you should tickle him all day long. Some 
people adopt allopathy, some hydropathy, and some 
homoeopathy ; but, begging pardon of none of the 
physicians, I have adopted cachinnopathy. Laughter, 
19* 



222 A Man. 

after all, is the great panacea. Only laugh, suffi- 
ciently, and you cannot easily become sick. Better 
is laughter than calomel, or arsenicum, or opium, 
or the waters of Saratoga, or intoxicating drinks. 
Laughter, as a medicine, gives a person no pain, 
except in his sides, and that is a wholesome pain. 
Furthermore, he who proceeds on my system, can 
make his own medicine and can prescribe for him- 
self. It is a maxim, that a person should not laugh 
at his own jest. But Charles Lamb proves that this 
is a popular fallacy, and gives it, as his opinion, that 
he who does not enjoy his own joke is ^4ike a gen- 
tleman who commends the flavor of his venison on 
the absurd strength of his never touching it himself." 

"Welcome, then, true, fresh, cordial laughter ! 
"Welcome you whose mouths are inclosed in pleasant 
parentheses ! Welcome you who can laugh your- 
selves, and can make other people laugh ! Our 
chosen friends ! may they all belong to this generous 
class! Our partner in business, if we are to have 
one, may he be what Sir Walter Scott calls ^^an 
honest laugher ! " If he should prove not to be such, 
we would surely propose a dissolution of the part- 
nership before it should become a year old. The 
preacher to whom we pay our Sunday respects, may 
he know the effectiveness of well-timed wit and the 
sweet health which laughter gives ! The Fourth-of- 
July orator before whom we are to sit next year, 
may he not weary our ears with a long and tedious 
harangue, which shall be to us a proof that he has 
never learned the value of mirthfulness ! 

And, dear reader, are you not ready to wish for 
yourself, the same blessings which have just beeu 



Laughter. 223 

mentioned ? Yes, I am sure that you are ; for you 
know the pleasures of wit and laughter. You know 
what they are in health — how they highten it. You 
know what they are in sickness — how they relieve 
it. You know what they are in weariness — how 
they drive it away, and diffuse a sweet exhilaration 
in its place. You know what they are when drow- 
siness has begun to steal over the spirit — how they 
dispel it, and quicken the powers which it has stupe- 
fied. You know the pleasures of wit and laughter. 
May you never depreciate them ! May you ever 
enjoy them ! 



224 ^ Man. 



PAPER VIII. 

TEARS. 

It is a part of our true discipline, in this life, to 
have tears drawn out of us. Simple are these. They 
are easily analyzed. You are familiar, though you 
may not know that you are, with all their constituent 
elements. 

Tears are a secretion. They flow from the lachry- 
mal glands. ^' They consist," says Mr. Youmans, 
" of water rendered slightly saline by common salt, 
and containing also a little albumen combined with 
soda." 

Of this nature are all the tears which we shed, 
either in our sorrows or in our raptures. Of this 
nature, were those tears which fell from the dear 
eyes of Jesus. I am disposed to make a topic here. 

I. 

THE TENDERNESS OF JESUS. 

Mr. GilfiUan, speaking of the two words which 
constitute the thirty-fifth verse of the eleventh chap- 
ter of St. John's narrative, says : " It is the shortest 
sentence in the Bible. But sooner than have wanted 
that little sentence, should we have consented that 
all books but the Bible should have perished- — that 



The Tenderness of Jesus. 225 

the entire glories of an eartiily literature had sunk 
into the grave of forgetfulness." 

Jesus wept ! Let us linger a while to meditate 
on this sacred fact. 

There seems to have been in Jesus every great 
susceptibility, which, in any instance, is highly in- 
teresting in man. He seems to have possessed the 
best of all that is either beautiful or noble, in man- 
hood. He was admirable, for his acuteness, earnest- 
ness, patience, courage, fidelity, humility, manners, 
eloquence, pathos, affection, and passion. His great- 
ness, as a man, was not one-sided ; and his sensitive- 
ness was never morbid. It is not written, that he 
never spoke like a man ; but that " never man spoke 
like this man." So, it may be said, not that he 
never felt as you do, but that you never felt as he 
did. The sympathies of Jesus were much like ours. 
But, in these respects, were they unlike — his were 
the freer, the stronger, the purer. His tenderness 
was more powerful than ours ; his tears were more 
expressive than ours. 

Do you not see how incompletely St. John and 
his compeers, in sacred authorship, would have per- 
formed their mission, had they written nothing con- 
cerning the tears of Jesus ? Could you spare from 
the evidences of the Master's goodness as a man, 
the sweet proof furnished in that tenderness of his, 
which made every one love him most who knew 
him best? Suppose that, in all his travels in Judea, 
he had appeared only a stern, dignified counselor, 
so hard-bosomed in his austerity, that men and 
women had followed him on account of the strict- 
ness of his moral lessons and example, and on ac- 

p 



226 A Man. 

count of but little more than that. Suppose he had 
always been, like John the Baptist, rigid and bleak 
in his integrity. Suppose he had exhibited no fond- 
ness for little children^ no sympathetic throbbings 
of heart for the poor, no gentleness for Mary, and 
no tears for the dead Lazarus. Had he been such a 
being, do you think his words wou.ld have lost so 
little of their potency, in the eighteen centuries 
which separate our day from his ? But he was not 
austere. He was no patron of those dreary monks 
of his time — the Essenes. Sufficient proof of this 
is found in the account of the miracle at Cana, in 
Galilee, which is represented as his first miracle. 
He uttered never a word in favor of ascetic abste- 
miousness. He committed no absurdities of self- 
denial. He was genial in his divineness. He had 
mild looks and winning manners. He was free, 
alike, from sourness and from grimness. You do 
not find that the little children of Judea used to 
run away at the approach of this great Friend. "Was 
it not he who blessed the children, and then turned 
to the men and the women, and said: ''Except ye 
be converted, and become as little children, ye shall 
not enter into the kingdom of heaven !" You do 
not find, that, by the absoluteness or the harshness 
of his words, he repelled many whom he might, by 
gentler manners, have won. How did Jesus gain 
adherents? Did he say to those Jews: ''Follow 
me: otherwise ye shall all be damned!" No, no. 
He said to them : " Come to me, all ye that 
labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give you 
rest." Beautiful utterance from the heart of the 
compassionate Master ! Oh ! do you not, in your 



The Tenderness of Jesus. 227 

ideal, see that great and lonely person, droppmg on 
his rough pathway, and into his bosom, as he treads 
on the soil of Galilee, tears having the same kind 
of salt which there is in yours ? 

But it may be well to speak of the tenderness of 
Jesus, as a reason why men and women should cul- 
tivate in themselves the susceptibility of tenderness. 
If Jesus wept, the conclusion may reasonably be 
drawn, that we all should sometimes weep. So, you 
need not be ashamed, if, in the last hour before this 
one, on yesterdaj^, or on some other day, you so far 
gave yourself up to the great feeling of the time, as 
to begin to dissolve. '^ Tears," says Leighton, "- that 
flow from love to God and grief for sin, have neither 
uncomeliness nor excess in them." Was it any 
harm to Peter, that he went out, after the denial, 
and wept bitterly ? Man is not man, woman is not 
woman, without that tenderness which, at times, 
shows itself in the swimming eye — that suscepti- 
bility which is the foundation of what the Roman 
Catholics call ^^the gift of tears." When you see a 
strong, stern man, who usually appears as if he were 
made of granite, put his hand to his storm-worn 
forehead and weep, do you not like that man ever 
afterward, and call him noble ? Yes ; the image of 
such a man is almost as dear to you as the image 
of Horeb's rock, out of which Moses is said to have 
drawn water with his rod, must have been to those 
wandering and weary Israelites. 

You will find, that, in every age of the world, 
men of any civilization have deemed it a gopd thing 
to mourn over the dead. All the paths of the race, 
from the earliest, have been sprinkled with tears. 



228 A Man. 

The Jews who lived more than thirty-five hundred 
years ago, used to weep. I read that, when Joseph, 
the ruler of Egypt, in the seven years' famine, met 
his brothers who had long before sold him to some 
merchants for twenty pieces of silver, and who had 
come up to him, not knowing that he was the over- 
seer of the empire, to buy food, Joseph recognized 
them, though they did not recognize him ; and when 
he saw his dear little brother Benjamin, his mother's 
son, he made haste to get himself away, because he 
sought where to weep ; and he entered his chamber, 
and wept there. And I read that, when he made 
himself known to his brothers, as he did not long 
afterward, he wept aloud, so that the Egyptians and 
the house of Pharaoh heard him. And I read that, 
when he rode up in his chariot to meet his venerable 
father Jacob, who had for years thought him to be 
dead, he presented himself to his aged sire, and fell 
on his neck and wept a good while. Passing fur- 
ther on, in the Scriptures, I read of David's tender- 
ness. '^And the king said to Cushi, ^Is the young 
man Absalom safe ? ' And Cushi answered, ' The 
enemies of my lord, the king, and all that rise to do 
thee hurt, be as that young man is ! ' And the king 
was much moved, and went up to the chamber over 
the gate, and wept ; and, as he went, thus he said : 
' my son Absalom ! my son, my son Absalom ! 
would God I had died for thee, Absalom, my son, 
my son!'" Also, in the New Testament, I find 
many beautiful episodes of human tenderness and 
tears. On a certain occasion, one of the Pharisees 
wished Jesus to eat with him. And he went into 
the Pharisee's house, and sat down at the table. 



The Tenderness of Jesus. 229 

And, behold ! a woman in the city, who was a sin- 
ner, when she knew that Jesus sat at meat in the 
Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster box of oint- 
ment, and stood at his feet, behind him, weeping, 
and began to wash his feet with tears, and did wipe 
them with the hairs of her head, and kissed his feet, 
and anointed them with the ointment. What acts 
of humble and pious devotion were these ! I am 
reminded, here, of those words of Moore, founded 
on the forty-seventh verse of the seventh chapter 
of St. Luke's narrative : 

** Were not the sinful Mary^s tears, 
An offering worthy Heaven, 
When, o'er the faults of former years, 
She wept and was forgiven? 

** When, bringing every balmy sweet, 
Her day of luxury stored, 
She o'er her Savior's hallowed feet, 
The precious odors poured, 

**And wiped them with that golden hair, 
Where once the diamond shone, 
Though now those gems of grief were there, 
Which shine for God alone? 

**Were not those sweets so humbly shed, 
That hair, those weeping eyes, 
And the sunk heart that inly bled. 
Heaven's noblest sacrifice? 

** Thou that hast slept in error's sleep. 
Oh ! wouldst thou wake in heaven ! 
Like Mary kneel, like Mary weep, 
'Love much,' and be forgiven." 

20 



230 A Man. 

Well, if Joseph wept, if David wept, if Mary 
wept, and if Jesus wept, should we not all some- 
times weep ? 

II. 

LACHRYM^ INANES. 

The ancient satirist, Juvenal, mentions the fact, 
that the susceptibility of tearful tenderness marks 
our great distinction from the beasts of the earth. 

" Separat hoc nos 
A grege mutorum/' 

This saying of Juvenal's is true. Still, it cannot but 
be admitted, that not all weeping persons weep 
nobly. Let us not fail to distinguish between the 
expression, in tears, of appropriate feeling, and the 
expression, in tears, of improper feeling. Be it re- 
membered, that to shed tears may not be to weep. 
'' The tears of men," says Wollaston, ''are in truth 
very differ ent from the cries and ejaculations of 
children. They are silent streams, and flow from 
other causes, commonly some tender, or, perhaps, 
philosophic reflection." There is a childish tender- 
ness, and there is a manly tenderness. Do not sup- 
pose, that because a person's eyes can readily become 
moist, he has, therefore, a tenderness of heart, like 
that of Jesus. Consider how much is needed to 
make those little drops from the eyes significant 
and beautiful. You would not admire the tender- 
ness of a lazy man, even if you should see him shed 
a barrel-full of tears over his poverty. You would 
not deem noble the tears of one whom you should 
know to be weak-minded. There must be truth, 



Lachrymae Inanes. 231 

strengtli, and profound sincerity in a person ; other- 
wise his tears can have little force. He weeps the 
most appropriately, who is known to be the most 
earnest. If you do really weep, it is an evidence 
that your heart is more than full, that it is torn, or 
that it is broken. Joy may have more than filled 
it ; sympathy may have more than filled it ; disap- 
pointment may have torn it ; bereavement may have 
broken it. Children shed tears for small things; 
and so do some men and women. In such cases, 
the heart is little afiected. It is not wrung by some 
great sorrow. It is not so joyful as to be unable to 
contain its joy. There are tears of impatience. 
There are tears of anger. There are tears which 
are shed for show. These last are Vanity's tears. 
They are paraded on the cheek. They trickle down, 
and are wiped away with unsoiled linen ; but the 
heart of the person has experienced neither rapture 
nor distress. It has not been moved. Such tears 
are no better than so many drops of water. They 
are lachrymde inanes^. Yanity does not w^eep. It 
only affects to dissolve. 

You will find that the eyes of true men and of 
true women do not become fountains till the deep 
of their souls has been moved. Honest tears are 
always preceded by earnest thought. Robert Hall 
said he could thinh of the word tear till he wept. 
Solon was once found by a friend, weeping on account 
of the death of his son. ^^Why," asked the friend, " do 
you grieve so bitterly ? tears cannot bring back the 
dead." '' 'T is because of this that I weep," said 
Solon. Why do we shed tears when we look, for 
the last time, on the face of a long-loved companion 



232 A Man. 

lying in the cold arms of death ? It is because we 
think of our loss. "Why do you weep when you are 
about to tear yourself from the old home where you 
sported in boyhood or in girlhood, and when you 
take the hand of your kind old mother and whisper 
good-by to her ? It is because you think of the dear 
faces and the familiar scenes from which you are 
passing away. Shall I tell you when you can weep 
about Jesus ? It will be when you have enthroned 
him in your soul. Shall I tell you when you can 
weep in repentance ? It will be when you have 
seriously and deeply thought of that Divine love 
against which you have sinned during so many self- 
ish years. 

Tears, not preceded by thought, are unmanly. 
^' Every attempt, in a sermon," says Coleridge, '^to 
cause emotion, except as a consequence of an im- 
pression made on the reason, or the understanding, 
or the will, I hold to be fanatical and sectarian." 

Ifow let me say, that it were not well for a person 
to deny himself the benefit of brokenness and tears 
because there are many who weep weakly and fool- 
ishly. No ; be sure to let yourself almost dissolve 
sometimes. Care not what others may think of 
your softness ; know that you have good cause for 
tearful tenderness, then weep. Solomon tells us 
that there is a time to weep. If your heart has been 
lacerated by some severe aifliction, be not too rigid 
with yourself. This unwillingness to let yourself 
weep will not result in good to you. In your loss, 
it were far better for you not to be stubborn of 
heart. In the season of your sorrow, give yourself 



Lachrymae Inanes. 23:^ 

up to be less under the sway of your will — that 
faculty by which, it is true, you have made all your 
heroic steps thus far in life. But, in the time of 
severe heart-trial, you should consent to be less 
under its sway for the sake of that refinement of the 
sensibilities which is induced when sorrow uncurbs 
the soul. 

There is no afBiction which, under the Divine 
Providence, may not be made beautifully disci- 
plinary. Is not the wricked, wild-natured slave-girl 
spiritually improved by the tears which trickle down 
her black cheeks, w^hen her Christian mistress talks 
tenderly to her about God, and heaven, and the 
angels ? "Who ever truly wept not to be made more 
humble, more gentle, more meditative ? Religion, 
it should seem, is scarcely attainable without tears. 
"Who has ever entered into friendship with Jesus, 
that was not previously ready, more than once, to 
sob like a person whose heart is breaking? The 
heavenly Dove loves to rustle its wings near a sob- 
bing sinner. Would not the devils themselves have 
some hope of regaining the abodes of the unfallen, 
if they could but shed honest tears ? Would you 
not trust an irreligious man the sooner if you were 
to know that his eyes sometimes become moist in 
consequence of repentant regrets ? Ah ! how many 
sad souls there are outside of the kingdom of heaven, 
who, by the tears of a penitence, otherwise uncon- 
fessed, have for years attested, in silent places, to 
the good angels and to God, that they have been 
almost persuaded to become Christians ! 
20* 



234 A Man. 

ni. 

AMIABLE SOFTNESS. 

Do you pride yourself on the tearless stubborn- 
ness with which you are able to endure the harrow- 
ings of bereavement ? Do you deem it the more 
noble in you to be ever stern and undissolving ? I 
would say to you, remember Jesus ! There are men 
who seem to think that their manhood — so much as 
they have — would be hazarded, should their eyes 
swim, for an hour, in the soft waters of tenderness. 
Hard-hearted beings are to be found among us, 
who, as if it were true that the bosoms of the brave 
never heave and sob under the dominion of tender, 
mournful feeling, would force themselves to look with 
dry eyes even on the face of a dear friend soon to 
be laid in the cold bowels of the grave. And, per- 
haps, they would be ready to pronounce the person 
childish whom they should see entering the kingdom 
of heaven weeping. But let it be remembered, that 
the best heroes are never such as can endure be- 
reavements and heart-pangs with the fewest tears. 
The wide world over, tears are accounted by the 
good and wise, even before they have become fa- 
miliarly acquainted with the eyes which shed them, 
as among the most impressive indications of genuine 
sincerity. He is considered barbarously cruel on 
whom the tears of innocence have no eifect. Tears 
are a mode of expression. They speak of mournful 
separations, of yearning sympathies, of a deeply-felt 
consciousness of self-reproach, or of feelings of joy 
and gratitude overflowing their wonted channels 
like streams in the opening spring. ^'It is easy," 



Amiable Softness. 235 

says Wolkiston, ^^to see how hard hearts and dry 
eyes come to be fashionable. But, for all that, it is 
certain the glandulde lachrymales are not made for 
nothing." 

True sadness is never either proud or vain. It 
scorns all pageantry, all gaudy flaunts, all confusing 
noise, and exhibits itself with as much sweet natu- 
ralness as if it had said, ^'Let me be honest for 
once !" The great man weeps as he stands beside 
his dead child. Would you not say that his softness 
is becoming to him while gazing on those pale, cold 
little features, and on that breathless little bosom ? 
You, perhaps, heard this great man a few days 
previous, as he rose, in the pride of statesmanship, 
to address the assembled thousands. You admired 
him, then ; you hung with rapture on his eloquent 
lips; you permitted him to sweep away your old 
opinions, and to form new ones for you ; you clapped 
your hands when his speech was concluded, and, with 
others, you exclaimed, '"^Well done! well done!" 
That orator is now, in grief, beside the coflSln of one 
of his children. His very heart, it should seem, is 
ready to break. As you behold those true tears 
trickling down his cheeks, and falling into his 
breast, do you think him less a great man for shed- 
ding them ? Ah ! he is noblest among men who 
can be brave in the hour which calls for bravery, 
and w^ho can dissolve in the hour which calls for 
tenderness ! What if there were no tributes of tear- 
ful regret scattered around the coflins and the tombs 
of the precious dead ! What if those white brows 
which are never again to freshen with young blood, 
and never again to beam with intelligent beauty, 



236 A Man. 

were doomed, also, to be borne to the sepulcher, 
followed by no heaving breasts and overflowing 
eyes ! ^onld you like to have it so ? Let me 
answer for you. So 1 This world is better for yon 
and me. because there are so many in it who go to 
grave-yards weeping behind human corpses. •• The 
bravest.'' says one of our poets. 

••'The Iravest are the tenderest.'^ 

See that invincible Martin Luther, who, in the six- 
teenth century, accomplished so much for the cause 
of Christianity — that man who would have gone to 
the city of AVorms. though there had been as many 
devils in it as roof-tiles ! Surely, you would not 
hesitate to say that he was a great and courageous 
person. On the contrary, you would say that he 
was even sublime in his moral heroism. But can 
you believe that this Luther was also a man of ten- 
derness and tears ? Does the infomiation surprise 
you, that he wept, as if his heart had been crushed, 
over his little daughter's pulseless forehead? ''^I 
cannot," said he to a friend, in the tinae of his be- 
reavement, '-I cannot forbear from tears, sighs, and 
groans — say rather, my very heart dies within me. 
I fee] engraven on my inmost soul her features, her 
words and actions ; all that she was to me in life 
and health, and on her sick bed, my dear, my dutiful 
child. The death of Christ himself — and I what 
are all deaths in comparison ! — cannot tear her fi^om 
mv thouo:ht5 as it should. . . . She was. as vou know, 
so sweet, so amiable, so full of tenderness ! " Martin 
Luther's bosom was not made of stone. Hear what 
Thomas Carlyle has to say concerning the amiable 



Amiable Softness. 237 

softness of this hero, whose words once shook 
the world: '^A rude, plebeian face, with its huge, 
crag-like brows and bones, the emblem of rugged 
energy. At first, almost a repulsive face ; yet, in 
the eyes especially, there is a wild, silent sorrow, 
an unnamable melancholy, the element of all gentle 
and fine afiections, giving to the rest the true stamp 
of nobleness. Laughter was in this Luther, but 
tears also were there. Tears, also, were appointed 
him — tears and hard toil. The basis of his life was 
sadness, earnestness." 

But it is time I had begun to offer some sugges- 
tions concerning the practical lessons which are 
connected with the foregoing reflections. Permit 
me, therefore, without any special effort to be 
m.ethodical, to express a few of these lessons. 

First. It is evident that weeping is not necessa- 
rily an indication of effeminacy. '-Jesus wept." 
This affirmation, made by St. John, should fully 
and forever settle the question of the propriety of 
tearful tenderness. Certainly, you were not made 
to look with stony indifference on the faces of de- 
ceased kindred and friends. Does not the same 
holy apostle, who tells you to rejoice with the re- 
joicing, tell you, in the same breath, to weep with 
the weeping? You should cultivate, with care, all 
those gentle affections which, in the hour of joy, or 
in the hour of sorrow, seek their fittest expression 
in tears. If you continually neglect or stifle them, 
you will become hard-hearted, unkind, cruel — pos- 
sibly inhuman, like the priest and the Levite who 
passed by on the other side. But the continued 



238 A Man. 

culture of them will make you humane, amiable, 
generous, sympathizing, affectionate, noble. Be sure, 
therefore, often to enter some situation in which 
you can experience the reflex influence of acts of 
charity and pity performed by yourself. Go and 
weep with unfortunate men and women who are 
worthy of perfect kindness. How would such ten- 
derness contribute to beautify your character! 
"~WeYe I," says an author, from whom Dugald 
Stewart quotes, ^'were I in a desert, I would find 
out wherewith in it to call forth my affections. If 
I could not do better, I would fasten them on some 
sweet myrtle, or seek some melancholy cypress to 
connect myself to ; I would court their shade, and 
greet them kindly for their protection ; I would cut 
my name on them, and swear they were the loveliest 
trees throughout the desert ; if their leaves withered, 
I would teach myself to mourn, and when they re- 
joiced, I would rejoice along with them." 

Secondly. You should be willing sometimes to 
be tearfully melanchol}^ '' Grood men," says a Greek 
poet, " are prone to shed tears." Another beautiful 
sentiment, in respect to tears, is expressed by a Latin 
writer, in the words, "Si vis me flere, dolendum est 
pnmum tibV — If you wish me to weep, you must 
first weep yourself It is reasonable to suppose that 
Mr. Holmes refers to the same passage, in those 
deeplj^ significant words of his, which he represents 
as coming from the lips of the Autocrat's landlady. 
Here they are : " It didn't take much to please 
him. Sometimes it would be a big book he'd lug 
home, and sometimes it would be a mikerscope, 
and sometimes it would be a dreadful old lookin' 



Amiable Softness. 239 

fiddle that he'd picked up somewliere, and kept 
a-screetchin' on, sayin' all the while it was jest 
as smooth as a flute. Then agin I'd hear him 
laughin' out all alone, and I'd go up and find him 
readin' some verses that he'd been makin'. But 
jest as like as not I'd go in another time, and find 
him cryin', but he'd wipe his eyes and try not to 
show it — and it was all nothin' but some more 
verses he 'd been a-writin'. I've heard him say that 
it was put down in one of them ancient books, that 
a man must cry himself if he wants to make other 
folks cry ; but, says he, you can't make 'em neither 
laugh nor cry if you don't try on them feelin's your- 
self before you send your work to the customers." 

It is, obviously, not well for a person to be ha- 
bitually merry. Such persons are marked by a want 
of mental depth and force. They never become 
thoughtful; they never become noble. The great 
and patient souls of this world get their fine suscep- 
tibilities and their strength, by a way of life in which 
they are sometimes playful, more often profoundly 
sad, and usually in earnest. You will, of course, be 
benefited rather than harmed, by occasionally in- 
dulging a frolicsome spirit ; but you should more 
frequently indulge a spirit of meditative sadness. 
You should seek to acquire a love of solitary con- 
templation. You should become able truly to say, 
with the poet, 

"I love in solitude to shed 
The penitential tear.^^ 

So live, and your character will be lovely. You will 
be a niissionary of comfort. Wherever you habitu- 



240 A Man. 

ally move and breathe, inliarmony and inhunianity 
will change into their opposites. You will soften 
the hardened ; you will reprove without offending 
the bold and the conceited. Coarseness will correct 
itself, and recklessness will be filled with self-re- 
proach in the chastening light of your presence. 
You will make no one with whom you communicate, 
worse ; but every one with whom you communicate, 
better. At your approach, the eyes of the poor will 
begin to beam with glad gratitude ; you will be 
beautiful to the sick ; it will be said of you, that you 
are all you profess to be, and much more. Friend- 
ship, patriotism, philanthropy, the filial relation, the 
fraternal relation, the parental relation, the matri- 
monial relation, and the relation of neighbor — these, 
having you to represent them, would seem to be 
inexhaustible sources of elevating joy. And reli- 
gion, which, in this world of errors and absurdities, 
is so often and so sadly misrepresented; religion, 
which, when exhibited in accordance with the 
teachings of Jesus, is attractive, and never other- 
wise ; religion, which man must possess, in order to 
be deeply content, and which he must possess in its 
enlarging and liberalizing reality, in order to enjoy 
or exemplify it nobly — what charms would it not 
reveal through your mellowed features, your pure 
words, your noble actions ! No satiric tongue would 
ever find ground for sneering comment in your 
modes of devotional expression, or in your manifes- 
tations of zeal. Infidelity would never have need 
to charge you with superstitious cant. Almost an 
angel of light would you be. Every one to whom 
your Jesus-like gentility should be known, would 



Amiable Softness. 241 

cherisli you ; and all the way to the grave yon would 
be cheered by the words of loved and loving ad- 
mirers. And death, which has been so often called 
''the king of terrors," what would it be to yon! 
Only a mighty messenger, sent by the Heavenly 
Father, to take off the fading garments of your 
peaceful soul, and admit it into celestial mansions. 
Surely, this messenger would come to your bed, 
having no power to fill your mind with tormenting 
regrets. Surely, your last pains would not hinder 
to you the experience of hallowed recollections 
coming up from the bright and flowery world of 
memorv. At the worst, vour bodilv ano-uish would 
be so far mitigated by happy reflections as to be 
easily endurable. 

Thus contemplatively and tranquilly would you 
suffer the great change ; and when your dying pulses 
should all become still, and that solemn word, gone ! 
be spoken over you, then what tears would attest 
the undying affection felt for you ! Long time would 
pass away. The mound beneath which your body 
would be separating to dust, would become sodded, 
and, perhaps, a bed of simple flowers. And years 
and years further on, your goodness, your humility, 
your Christian tears and loveliness would be re- 
membered, with longings for the enjoyment of your 
society, in the regions of peace, the clime of bless- 
edness ! 

THE END OF PART FIRST. 
21 Q 



PART SECOND. 



(243) 



" For man is man and master of his fate/^ 

Idyls of the King. 

**What are you" [a philosopher was once asked] ^*in conse- 
quence of your admiration of these abstruse speculations?" He 
answered : " What I am it does not become me to say ; but what 
thousands are who despise them, and even pride themselves on 
their ignorance, I see — and tremble!" 

From ''A Lay Sermon," by S. T. Coleridge. 

" I admit that natural abilities without the aid of learning 
have oftener availed for purposes of fame and virtue than learn- 
ing without natural abilities ; and yet, I at the same time con- 
tend, that when to natural abilities of an exalted and brilliant 
character there are added the directing and molding power of 
learning, then something or other great and extraordinary is 

accustomed to result." 

Cicero. 



(244) 



A M AN 



PAPER I. 

ASPIRATION. 

Every great man makes many. Heroes, scholars, 
and thinkers insure to the world other heroes, scho- 
lars, and thinkers. You say, that the noblest works 
of Homer were his Iliad and his Odyssey. But I 
assure you, that his noblest works were other than 
these — they Vv^ere the little men he turned into great 
men. Cause a person to become profoundly con- 
scious of what he potentially is, and you make him 
less servile, less vulgar, manlier, nobler. For, from 
this consciousness, he will at once derive the feel- 
ing, that there is rank in his blood. He will see, 
that there is much in him, that is like much there 
is in God. Then, he will begin to become an un- 
common person. He will no longer look on his 
failures as necessities, and on his victories as acci- 
dents. " It is right," he will be ready to say, " that 
IsTature should bow to me, just as it is right that I 
should bow to God." And thenceforward, his kingly 
soul must be respected. ITever, with impunity, may 
any member of the race insult him. He will punish, 
either with high scorn or with terrible silence ! He 
will have learned, that there is no need for him to 
be mean or mendicant ; but that he may lift up his 
21 * * (245) 



24b A Man. 

head, and throw his eyes heavenward, as if it were 
given him to look the sun out of countenance. 

Be sure, to-day, my friend, that you possess the 
spirit of a man. By-and-by, in your passage through 
these busy years, you will be called to prove, before 
men, whether you have or have not that spirit ; and 
unless you shall be ready, some human worm may 
drag off the very laurels which it is now in your 
power to w^in. 

I. 

CAPACITY. 

The men of fame are those who, at an early age, 
began to interrogate their own natures, the books 
which they had to read, and many sources else, say- 
ing : " What is a man ? and what to a man is possi- 
ble ? " As the result of this primal questioning, they 
became animated with an ardent desire of supe- 
riority. You cannot escape the impression which a 
lad only six years old will make, if he has caught 
glimpses of his own capacity for manliness. The 
schoolmaster of Themistocles used to say to his 
highly-destined pupil: ^'Boy, you will be nothing 
common or indifferent ; you will be either a blessing 
or a curse to the community." Early in life, Julius 
Caesar began to become great. The dictator, Sylla, 
observed the movements of the brave lad ; and, if I 
may be allowed this pun, he was not so sUIt/ as to 
fail to see in him a future rival. So, he told his 
imsuspecting friends, that 'Hheir sagacity was small, 
if they did not, in that boy, see many Mariuses." I 
will answer for it, that there have been but few 
illustrious men who did not, in youth, give both 



Capacity. 247 

visible and audible prophecies of tbe renown to 
which they were destined. Macaulay tells us, that, 
at the age of fourteen, William Pitt was, "in intel- 
lect, a man." Said a clergyman of Walter Scott, 
when he was a boy, " One may as well speak in the 
mouth of a cannon, as where that child is." Thomas 
De Quincey, when but fifteen years old, could con- 
verse fluently in Greek. '^ That boy," said one of 
his instructors to a friend, " could harangue an 
Athenian mob better than you or I could address 
an English one." Cicero, in his early days, was 
advised to change his cognomen, because another 
family bearing it had covered it with disgrace. But 
Cicero raised his young head, and uttered a resolu- 
tion which, about nineteen centuries and a half 
afterward, was destined to be taken from history, 
and regarded with admiration. ''I will endeavor," 
said he, " to make the name of Cicero more glorious 
than that of the Scauri." When George Washing- 
ton was a lad, he was more noble than other lads 
with whom he associated. His father discovers, one 
day, that a certain choice tree in his garden has 
been sadly mutilated by some roguish hatchet. He 
asks, who did this ? It was a stern question, and 
one which most boys of common feelings would, 
undoubtedly, in a similar case, have answered either 
with a quibble or with a downright falsehood. But 
see how this little George, as if he had already re- 
solved never to act ignobly, steps forward, and says : 
^'Father, I did it — I cannot tell a lie." This fine 
boy became a sublime man ! 

May we not, therefore, conclude, that an early- 
felt consciousness of capacity for manliness, results, 



248 A Man. 

in nearly all cases, in the formation of an admirable 
cliaracter? But tlie glimpses of intellectual capa- 
city, which may be caught, at later points of life, 
tend, not less evidently, to raise the general tone of 
the soul. Persons are, in many instances, made 
great, by the event of a day or of an hour. It is 
interesting to observe how, when important changes 
sweep over human aftairs, minds that have lived in 
obscurity, burst, almost at once, into public action, 
and soon command the best admiring eyes of the 
world. The hard ordeals of human life — such as 
adversity, peril, opposition, and persecution — help 
not a little to call forth the slumbering energies of 
men. In the time of the American Revolution, 
unnumbered heroes were born in a day. 

The soul may, also, be raised into a higher life, 
in consequence of impressions produced by sudden 
and wonderful events. Saul of Tarsus, while on the 
way to Damascus, ^^ breathing out threatenings and 
slaughter against the disciples of the Lord," is sud- 
denly blinded by a great light shining from heaven 
round him ; and, not long afterward, such a change 
is wrought in him, that he appropriately takes the 
name of Paul the Apostle. 

Thus closely related are aspiration and the dis- 
covery of capacity. But it becomes us to consider, 
that it is not possible for us to conceive the entire 
greatness of which a man is capable. Indeed, the 
aspiring soul may be truly said to have no fixed 
destiny ; for its life and its progress are two parallel 
lines, which can never meet to form such a destiny. 
You are able to determine your own character, not 
to a certain point and no further, but to infinity. 



Capacity. 249 

The Maker took delight, it should seem, in nothing 
more than in the man he had made. Him he 
endowed with powers enabling him to grapple 
with difficulties of the most formidable character, 
and put them under his feet. See how many monu- 
mental triumphs of human genius and skill are 
proclaiming what man can do ! Has he not made 
the winds obey his will, and the lightning do his 
bidding? Has he not tunneled mountains, and. 
caused the iron-horse to pass through them with his 
train of chariots ? Has he not excavated rail-roads 
under the beds of broad rivers ? Has he not built 
nations, and torn nations down ? 

** The brave soul is a thing which all things serve.^' 

Civilization has no limit which the man of aspi- 
ration may not overleap, and exultingly enter the 
beyond. In vain do ITature's forces resist this master. 
His capacity for development and progress has its 
symbol in that mysterious curve — the parabola; 
and God has left him free to take either the upward 
or the downward course to infinity ! 

What an honor to be related to such a being ! I 
glory in my species ! May I never sell my birthright 
for a mess of pottage ! I am a man ! The great God 
has breathed something of his own life into me, and 
all that are fashioned like me. For my race, he set 
the sun and the moon in the sky. For my race, he 
was busy in the eventful millenniums of geological 
change. For my race, he prepared the atmosphere, 
the soil, the rivers which flow to the seas, and the 
seas themselves. To promote the well-being of just 



250 A Man. 

such beings as I am, the beautiful and the useful 
were made to meet and blend, in the varying scenery 
of the seasons. I am a man ! Yonder mountains 
have summits which seem to pierce the ether. They 
have rough sides, over which the storms are seen to 
pass. They have foundations of granite, about which 
the earthquakes are sometimes heard to thunder. 
]^othing seems able to move them. They become 
not feeble with age. Time, could he speak to us, 
would own, that, for centuries, he has, in vain, 
sought to weaken their resisting sinews. But, after 
all, they can make no higher boast than that of be- 
ing, like Sinai of old, grand stepping-stones, on 
which the aspiring man may approach nearer to his 
God ! Do not frown on me, hoary Chimborazo, thou 
chief among thy giant brothers of the far-ranging 
Andes. I am a man ! There are beings, formed 
as I am, who could tear out thy heart, and build 
palaces and monuments out of thy bones ! I am a 
man ! I fear thee not, thou rolling ocean, with thy 
brood of tempests. Though unnumbered heroes 
have perished in thy embrace, yet may I not believe 
that He, in whose likeness I and every man was 
made, will one day put his foot on thy haughty neck 
and make thee give up thine illustrious dead? I 
am a man ! The fame of my race has made history 
fascinating and glorious. The patriarchs, the pro- 
phets, the apostles, and the martyrs, were members 
of the same great family to which I belong. Moses 
was a man. Socrates and Plato, Csesar and Cincin- 
natus, Luther and Shakspeare, "Washington and 
Webster were men. I stand, also, in the same line 



Energy. 251 

with Jesus ; for Jesus thouglit it no dishonor to be 
called a man ! 

Such is the consciousness of capacity, which gives 
rise to aspiration. 

n. 

ENERGY. 

The immediate product of aspiration is energy. 
The aspirant is disposed to add achievement to 
achievement, success to success. He is heroic. The 
true life of a man comprises a series of triumphs, 
celebrated less outwardly than inwardly. The mo- 
ment a person loses his energy, that moment the 
series of triumphs is cut off. Then, the spirit of 
genuine life leaves him ; disease begins to prey on 
his brain; his blood becomes sluggish and cold; he 
falls in mien. 

"And how men slur him, saying all his force 
Is melted into mere effeminacy ?^^ 

"When a person renounces engrossing employment, 
when his eyes gleam no more with the fire of hero- 
ism, when he is found seeking where he may most 
conveniently retire to spend his days as a mere 
voluptuary, then you may seriously pat him on the 
back, and assure him that he has begun to die ! In 
the intellectual life, we must be moving, like ships 
against the current, either forward or back^vard. 
The race consists of two classes — those persons 
whose habitual tendency is toward more life, and 
those persons whose habitual tendency is toward 
less life. The situation in which a choice is made 
between the ascending course and the descending, 



252 A Man. 

is respectability. In the former class, must be num- 
bered all those who advance from poverty and 
mediocrity to positions of independence or of emi- 
nence. The direction which the man takes is not 
absolutely determined by the occupation which he 
chooses ; it is determined by himself. Cincinnatus, 
starting from the furrow scooped out by his plow, 
goes forth to inspire and dazzle men with heroic 
heat and brilliance. Putnam, in a greater revolu- 
tion, leaves his field and does likewise. These men 
were not long in proving that they could succeed in 
military life as well as on a farm. Franklin begins 
business as a chandler ; but he soon discovers that 
he is capable of a higher employment than that of a 
dealer in candles. So, he advances a little higher, 
and begins business the second time as a printer. 
But he soon discovers that he has too much capacity 
and life for even so respectable an occupation as the 
type-setter's. So, he advances still higher ; becomes 
an inventor; wins the title of ^^ Prometheus of 
modern times;" serves his country as a legislator, 
as a signer of the Declaration of Independence, and 
as an ambassador; and dies, at last, in ripeness, in 
tranquillity, and in the motherly arms of fame. 

But, in the latter class, must be numbered all 
those who are deficient in energy. Many of the 
rich belong to it ; but a larger number of the poor. 
It includes every man who does not like to work. 
Indolence is a want of life. There is a poverty 
which tends to the beggary of a desperate shiftless- 
ness. This is the poverty which is dishonorable. 
It involves the decay of manly force. Thou who 
hast strong hands, lungs that are never in pain, an 



Energy. 253 

appetite which is independent of provocatives, and, 
withal, the usual number of mental faculties, charge 
not thy destitution either on Misfortune or on Fate. 
Thy greatest want is a want of energy. Thou, sir, 
art indolent; thou art a drone in the hive of the 
race. Go and learn from some honey-bee the dif- 
ference between existing and living ! 



-Let who will be clever, 



Do noble things, not dream them, all day long ; 
And so, make life, death, and that vast forever, 
A grand, sweet song/' 

When Indolence usurps the throne of the intellect, 
then courage and the strong look of manliness pass 
away. How^, in all the ages, by this cajoling monarch, 
has talent been stultified, and genius inebriated ! 
Imagine the amount of thought which has been 
prevented by tobacco and opium, sack and brandy! 
But few men are deeply joyous, because but few 
men have learned what it is to live. You cannot 
buy joy w^ith gold. Like fame, it costs work. The 
higher the kind of industry, the more exquisite the 
joy. Hence, we may conclude that there is a cer- 
tain reward to the author whose book contains 

** Things which were born when none but the still night 
And his dumb candle saw his pinching throes/' 

Such books are justly called icorks. But that author 
has doubly failed whose production has brought 
him neither bliss nor cash. The intellectual exer- 
tion and rapture of a writer may be deemed a prog- 
nostic of the fate of his w^ork. The critics cannot 
permanently injure a treatise which abounds with 
22 



254 A Man, 

fresh thouglit. Take, for proof, the writings of 
Thomas Carlyle. Should a superficial writer com- 
pose a book in the style of this author, men would 
not read one of his weak chapters. They would 
throw his book across their rooms. But Carlyle's 
books have much more than rude words in them. 
They are rough sheaves of imperishable ideas. 

Some vicious men, and some men of little intel- 
lectual force, frequent the paths of lofty companion- 
ship, as if they could long disguise their want of 
virtue or their weakness of mind. Is not a down- 
ward tendency, when buried alive, always sure to 
have its resurrection ? Who can forever carry his 
real self concealed under an assumed individuality ? 
Hypocrisy, either in religion or in literature, is 
treacherous to itself. The uninterrupted show of 
superior worth is too expensive to him who has little 
superior worth to show. He tires of the restraint 
imposed by his hypocritical undertaking, and soon 
the old Adam, under the cloak, shocks the deceived 
sensibilities of the high and cultivated. It is generally 
cheaper and easier to go downward than upward. 
Did not the ill-subdued earth-spirit in Paine impel 
him to write himself down ? Did not Byron, as one 
should have expected, betray the corruptness of his 
heart in the poisonous out-gushings of his sensual 
poems ? Judas successfully concealed, for a time, 
under the guise of a religious profession, his ever- 
burning lust for money. But, at length, he naturally 
gave a great holiday to his avaricious passion, and 
clandestinely sold the Jesus of the world for thirty 
pieces of silver. 

Pretenders, of whatever kind, are doomed to dis- 



Continuity in Endeavor. 255 

close, in some manner, their true character. I do 
not believe in Phrenology; but I do believe that, 
in despite of all assumed appearances, the soul of a 
man will show itself. Hollow things have a hollow 
sound — at least, hollow professions do. Coleridge 
had, once, a listener at a dinner-table, who was 
silent. " I thought him intelligent," says the philoso- 
pher. But hypocrisy betrays itself. The man stared 
like a beast when the dumplings were brought in, 
and blurted his coarseness by exclaiming, " Them's 
the jockeys for me ! " Coleridge said afterward, ''I 
wish Spurzheim could have examined the fellow's 

head." 

III. 

CONTINUITY IN ENDEAVOR. 

Aspiration takes its rise directly in the conscious- 
ness of capacity. It is a '' divine hunger," a heroic 
unrest of the soul ; it is that which would not let 
Themistocles sleep ; it is that which made Thucy- 
dides, when but six years old, weep, at the Olympic 
festival, while Herodotus was reading historic nar- 
ratives to the applauding Greeks. It urges the man 
to action ; it makes Themistocles become a second 
Miltiades, and Thucydides become a second Hero- 
dotus ; it cannot coexist with indolence : it hardly 
survives any long-continued cessation from effort. 

We should, therefore, never think of loungiug, 
except for brief and bright whiles. In the true life, 
a man is less zealous in celebrating victories than 
he is in winning them. 

"Not enjoyment, and not sorrow 
Is our destined end and way; 
But to act, that each to-morrow- 
Find us further than to-day/' 



256 A Man. 

Even classic leisure — the otium cum dignitate — is a 
complete illusion, so far as it is time entirely free 
from vigorous employment. The mind that has 
long been habitually occupied with studies or with 
business, tends, in idleness, either to become efiemi- 
nate or to become despondent. Such a mind is best 
refreshed by intervals of novel occupation. Of all 
things, idleness tires it the soonest, and wastes it 
the most. 

Retirement from business always proves illusory 
to those who have no intellectual habits, adapting 
them for a total and continued respite from usual 
avocations. ^^To know how to be idle," says Mac- 
kenzie, ''is a very superior accomplishment." Few 
merchants, that are not literary men, could endure 
a perpetual release from mercantile employment. 
Some writer speaks of a retired butcher, who used 
regularly to kill an animal for his own amusement. 

When Charles Lamb had been for thirty-three 
years a clerk in the India House, he was emanci- 
pated on a pension of four hundred and forty-one 
pounds a year. Writing, soon after his release, to 
his friend Barton, he said: '-My spirits are so tu- 
multuary with the novelty of my recent emancipa- 
tion, that I have scarce steadiness of hand, much 
more of mind, to compose a letter." But it was not 
long before his continued freedom had become bur- 
densome to him. To find relief, he used to take, as 
he says, '' on an average, a fourteen-miles-walk per 
day, with a sporting-dog, Dash." Speaking of cer- 
tain antiquarian studies, with which he amused his 
mind, he observes : '' Men must have regular occu- 
pation that have been used to it." 



Continuity in Endeavor. 25^7 

It is reasonable to think that suicide is, in nume- 
rous instances, the result of an unphilosophic sus- 
pension of long-continued intellectual activity. 
Much more, is it rsasonable to suppose that heroism 
itself, has, in numerous instances, paid for a few 
years of popular leisure in many years of indolence 
and inebriety. Montaigi*te, it is said, once met a 
beggar, of whom, in answer to the usual application 
of the man for alms, Montaigne asked if he was not 
ashamed to beg. '^Oh, no," rejoined the beggar, 
" if you knew how lazy I am ! " The philosopher 
smiled, and rewarded the mendicant for his honesty. 
Do you not suppose Montaigne could see, in that 
instance of besotted and impoverished laziness, 
some lingering traces of a once noble intellect ? So, 
you have, perhaps, seen, in a hundred wrecked men, 
that have, from time to time, staggered by you, in 
your native town, with their faces flushed from the 
effect of that fiery potion which unhumanizes hu- 
manity, like the glass and the wand by which the 
fabled Circe is said to have tm*ned men into swine, 
the traces of former nobility, the remnants of ruined 
manhood. 

Not all the beggars whom you meet have always 
been beggars. Talent and -genius themselves are 
liable to become mendicant and vagrant. Should 
you talk more freely with the ragged wanderers who 
come to your door, methinks you would find, that 
some of them have read the classics, and that many 
of them understand history better than you do. 

I renounce the question, whether the larger num- 
ber of those, to whom we give alms, are or are not 
already richer than many of their willing donors. I 
22 * R ^^ 



258 A Man. 

suspect, that but few of them are not able to see 
when they were aspiring and manly. In some period 
of sickness, of leisure, or of dissipation, they lost 
their love of employment, their passion for more life. 
Since that time, they have passed through succes- 
sive stages of idleness and vicious indulgence, each 
lower than the preceding one. Fallen creatures 
they now are, whose bosoms throb no more with 
the desire of respectability. Do you think they 
would lay up money? They are too indolent to 
become rich. Misers are workers; but do these 
mendicants work ? If they should gather a surplus, 
would they not discontinue, for some days, their 
vagabond rovings, and eat, drink, and sleep, till 
that surplus should be squandered ?' 

No man who is too lazy to work for money, will 
let himself become rich. Hence, you should not 
think, that many a listless mendicant has his bank- 
stock. ITor should you, except with a spirit like 
that of Montaigne, put Montaigne's question to the 
beggar. I bid you to study the man, in the light 
of philosophy. Place your dime in his hand. Draw 
from him, in return, something in respect to his 
youth and early manhood. See whether he did or 
did not once have the spirit of a man. Do not tell 
him, that it would be well, if he should go to work. 
You should know, that, without aspiration and 
energy, he is far better fitted to beg than to work. 
But try to waken in him a desire to become a man. 
Remind him of the higher possibilities of the soul. 
Speak to him of God, of immortality, and of great 
men. Cause him to sigh for respectability and 
nobleness. So do, and the mendicant may leave 



Continuity in Endeavon 259 

your door with the resolution to commence a better 
life. 

Mackenzie gives an amusing account of a beggar 
who went about as a fortune-teller. The man w^as 
persuaded to let his donor know something of his 
profession. ^^I had," said he, 'Hhe humor of plain- 
dealing in me from a child ; but there is no doing 
with it in this world ; we must do as we can ; and 
lying is, as you call it, my profession. But I was in 
some sort forced to the trade, for I once dealt in 
telling the truth. I was a laborer, sir; and gained 

as much as to make me live But I was 

brought to my idleness by degrees ; sickness first 
disabled me, and it went against my stomach to 
work ever after." 

It may seem strange, but it is true, that the 
literary world itself has had its men of fame, who, 
even after acquiring distinction as scholars, ap- 
proached near to the beggar-like indolence, result- 
ing from discontinued endeavor. From the state 
of dissoluteness into which they had lapsed, they 
found it extremely difficult to rise again, and 
become masters. The conclusion may, perhaps, 
justly be drawn, that they never completely regained 
the aspiration and the force which were lost by 
them, in their intellectual apostasy. The gifted 
Coleridge gave to opium years in which he might 
have poured transcendent light on the race. He 
knew and confessed his want of continuity in manly 
endeavor. Disturbed by the solemn expostulation, 
'' I gave thee so many talents ; what hast thou done 
with them?" he said he had prayed with drops of 
agony on his brow ; trembling not only before the 



26o A Man. 

justice of his Maker, but even before the mercy of 
his Redeemer. At another time, he affirmed, that 
^^he was beset with the most wretched and unman- 
ning reluctance and shrinking from action." 

Thomas De Quincey, one of the distinguished 
dead of the year eighteen hundred and fifty-nine, 
was also an instance, illustrating the difficulty of 
recovering that force or temper which the intellect 
loses, by irregularity and dissipation. From the 
history which he gave to the world of himself, we 
learn, that he early became distinguished as a Greek 
scholar. His '' Archididascalus" used to try to 
puzzle him in Sophocles ; and, to accomplish his 
purpose, he conned the lessons before the hour of 
recitation. But De Quincey, though only about 
fifteen years old, hardly condescended to open the 
book, till it w^as time to recite ; and then he read, 
with ease, the most difficult passages. 

This young man, possessing an intellect so ^' su- 
perb in its analytic functions," took it into his head 
to run away from his four guardians and his '^Archi- 
didascalus," whom he did not like, and to see some- 
thing of the world. He went, first, to ITorth Wales. 
His money was soon entirely spent ; but he contrived 
to get to London. "While there, he roamed, by day, 
about the city; and, at night, slept in an old empty 
house, where he had a little forlorn girl for company. 
He says, that ''his sleep was never more than what 
is called dog-sleep; so that he could hear himself 
moaning, and was often, as it seemed to him, awa- 
kened suddenly by his own voice." 

He became sad and beggar-like. Indeed, he al- 
most starved. A street-walker, named Ann, be- 



Continuity in Endeavor* 261 

friended him, and saved liis life. Of lier, he after- 
ward elegantly and tonchingly wrote : " 0, youthful 
benefactress ! how often, in succeeding years, stand- 
ing in solitary places, and thinking of thee, with 
grief of heart and perfect love, — how often have I 
wished that, as in ancient times, the curse of a 
father was believed to have a supernatural power, 
and to pursue its object, Avith a fatal necessity of 
self-fulfillment, — even so the benediction of a heart 
oppressed with gratitude might have a like preroga- 
tive ; might have power given it from above, to 
chase, to haunt, to waylay, to overtake, to pursue 
thee into the central darkness of a London brothel, 
or, if it were possible, into the darkness of the grave, 
there to awaken thee with an authentic message of 
peace and forgiveness, and of final reconciliation ! " 

Mr. De Quincey was, at length, rescued from his 
irregular course of life in the metropolis ; and he, 
again, found himself in elevated society, and en- 
gaged in intellectual pursuits. But you will observe 
how easy to him it seems to have been, ever after- 
ward, to break the continuity of high endeavor, and 
fall into Epicurean dissipation. 

Like Coleridge, he became an intemperate opium- 
eater. He first took the drug, in consequence of the 
ad^dce of a college acquaintance by whom it was 
recommended to him, as a means of relieving the 
tooth-ache and certain rheumatic pains in his head. 
He found it a celestial panacea, a Pharmacon nepen- 
thes for all human woes. It introduced him into 
^'an abyss of divine enjoyment." He felt, that 
happiness was now fully in his power. It could be 
bought for a penny, and carried in his waistcoat 



262 A Man. 

pocket. He could have portable ecstacies corked 
up in a pint-bottle. He could have peace of mind 
sent down to him in gallons by the mail-coach. In 
his bright opium-days, he went to hear Grassini, at 
the theater. The exhilaration produced by the drug, 
being greatly hightened by the eiFect of the music, 
Avas agreeable beyond description. ''All this," says 
he, " was to be had for five shillings. And over and 
above the music of the stage and the orchestra, I 
had all around me, in the intervals of the perform- 
ance, the music of the Italian language talked by 
Italian women — for the gallery was usually crowded 
with Italians — and I listened with a pleasure such 
as that with which Weld, the traveler, lay and 
listened, in Canada, to the sweet laughter of Indian 
women." 

On page eighty-two of his " Confessions," he 
thus eloquently eulogizes his favorite and darling 
drug: ''Thou buildest on the bosom of darkness, 
out of the fantastic imagery of the brain, cities and 
temples, beyond the art of Phidias and Praxiteles—- 
beyond the splendor of Babylon and Hekatompylos ; 
and from the ' anarchy of dreaming sleep ' callest 
into sunny light the faces of long-buried beauties, 
and the blessed household countenances, cleansed 
from the ' dishonors of the grave.' Thou only givest 
these gifts to man ; and thou hast the keys of Para- 
dise, oh, just, subtile, and mighty opium ! " 

But Be Quincey became, at length, less a dilettante 
eater of opium than an eater of it from necessity. 
He was attacked by an appalling irritation of the 
stomach. Now began his terrors — terrors resulting 
from the creative power of the eye, and terrors of . 



Continuity in Endeavor. 263 

gloomy dreams. He used to awake from sleep in 
struggles. Once, lie cried aloud, '^ I will sleep no 



more 



He found that the drug was devouring the vitality 
of his body. He, therefore, descended from the 
fearful hight which he had reached, of eight thou- 
sand di'ops of opium a day, and allowed himself 
only three hundred, and then only one hundred and 
sixty. His irritability was, now, very great. He 
confesses, that he could not stand still or sit, for two 
minutes together. And even when four months had 
passed, after his renouncement of opium, he was 
'^ still agitated, throbbing, palpitating, shattered, 
and much in the situation of him who has been 
racked." 

Consider how sad an interruption of manly habits 
must needs have resulted from indulgence, so great 
and so protracted. We well know, that Thomas De 
Quincey was, as Richard Chenevix Trench has pro- 
nounced him, ''a master of English prose." We 
know the fascination of his opulent style. We have 
lingered on the beautiful and the sublime passages 
which adorn the pages of his '' Confessions" and of 
his ^^Suspiria." But what reader of his numerous 
works is unable to discover in them his want of that 
"sustained self-mastery" which enables a man to 
accomplish a mission of true greatness ? ^ 

Do you see, now, the importance of continuity in 
earnest and lofty endeavor ? Do you see what it is 
to have '' a smack of Hamlet ? " Let not talent and 



■^ The eloquent and scholarly Mr. Bajne says, that the mark 
of a full development of manhood is a sustained self-mastery. 



264 A Man. 

genius go down, for a long stay, in the valleys of 
Epicurean pleasure ! Let tliem rise from strength 
to strength, and from eminence to eminence, only 
to rise still higher ! 

The soul of a man stagnates, when repose has be- 
come sweeter to him than activity, and when luxu- 
rious enjoyment is sought by him as an object of 
daily pursuit. You cannot eat, drink, and be merry, 
for many days, without hazarding, to some extent, 
the spirit of manhood in you. Heroism, like light, 
depends on vibration. Do you not perceive how all 
living creatures are, by their constant tendency to 
add breath to breath, being to being, kept from 
speedy decay ? Are not yonder plants and animals 
the more long-lived, by as much as they are, in their 
way, the better heroes ? When the tempest-scarred 
oak loses its yearnings for more life, does not its 
pellucid blood give up its pulse, and does not the 
once lightning-defying tree become a sneak of the 
forest ? As with oaks, so with men. 

Here will occur to you the mistake of Alexander 
of Macedon. He should have better reasoned on 
that question of conquering the world. Then, it is 
proper to suppose, that he would not have suffered 
the heroism which had carried him through so many 
stormy battles, to find its end in a fatal swoop of 
debauchery. A hundred men have died, devoured 
by ennui, because, like Alexander, they one day 
ceased from living, and began dissolutely to exist. 
The end of their career was unmanning gratification 
and inevitable decay. Many a successful inventor 
has sunk in indolence, after his first invention ; and 
many a successful author has breathed his last heroic 



Balance. 265 

breath over his first work. And there have been 
triumphant bookworms, whose highest aim, at col- 
lege, was to win the honors of a valedictorian ; and 
thej^ have, in weakness, crawled to obscure graves ! 
The true man is habitually aspiring and active. 
If he rests from pursuit, it is only for a brief time, 
and for recreation. He knows that occupation and 
progress are indispensable to genuine life. He prides 
himself on no amount of native genius, because it 
allows him long seasons of popular leisure. '^ Man's 
heart," observed a certain prince from whom Gott- 
hold quotes, '' is like a millstone ; pour in corn, and 
round it goes, bruising, and grinding, and convert- 
ing it into flour ; whereas, give it no corn, and the 
stone, indeed, turns round, but only grinds itself 
away, and becomes ever thinner, and smaller, and 
narrower." 

IV. 

BALANCE. 

Though aspiration should be continuous in a per- 
son, yet, even when rightly directed, it will be obvious 
that it should ever be subject to temperative restraint. 
Otherwise, the character of the person in whom it 
exists will exhibit a lamentable want of symmetry. 

The being of man is manifold. The development 
of its germs should be, in those diiFerent yet inter- 
connected channels of life — the physical, the intel- 
lectual, the social, the moral, and the religious. In 
neither of these channels should the soul indicate a 
defect of energy. The intellect should not suffer loss 
for the body's sake, nor should the body for the intel- 
lect's sake, nor should conscience for the sake of either. 
23 



266 A Man. 

There is many a person wlio is full-grown in evil, 
but a child in good. How pitiful seem a thousand 
men, going on forever, as they are, in the culture of 
desires in them, which are growing into luxuriant 
weeds ! So far, at length, are they disciplined for 
the w^rong, that when you scatter Christian seed on 
them, it must needs share the fate of those kernels, 
in the parable, which are represented as springing 
up only to be choked by rank thorns. We all are 
gaining strength in some direction of possible 
growth. ISTot one of us stands still, in these years. 
Time will show what you are, by degrees, though 
unnoticed, making of yourself. Do you think that 
you become manlier, as you become older ? Consi- 
der wherein it is, that you are adding strength to 
strength. Are you a child yet, in respect to much 
in you, that should be cultivated ? Are you already 
too old, in more respects than one ? '^ Brother'' — 
methinks I hear Paul saying this — ^"^be not a child 
in understanding ; howbeit, in every unholy dispo- 
sition, be thou a child ; but in understanding, be 
thon a man ! "* 

The wise gardener keeps down the weeds, and 
carefully fosters the plants. What would you say 
to him, should you find him cultivating the weeds 
rather than the plants? Alexander the Great cul- 
tivated in himself, more than anything else, that 
corrupt weed, the lust for power. Judas cultivated 
the weed of acquisitiveness. Cain's soul was a yard 
of foul weeds, that were rampant, and full of poison- 
ous juices. Abel's soul, on the contrary, was a 

* See 1 Corinthians, xiv. 20. 



Balance. 267 

garden of beauty and fragrance, in the vicinity of 
which good angels loved to linger. Simon Peter, 
before his conversion, at the Pentecost, cultivated 
almost ever}^ strong desire which sprung up in his 
soul, whether it was good or evil. The strange light 
which dazzled Saul of Tarsus out of countenance, 
in the road to Damascus, terminated the growth of 
the weeds of corrupt desire, which he had long been 
cultivating, and caused him to begin, at once, to 
foster the germs of virtue that were in him. So, we 
all are cultivators of ourselves. Our traits are pro- 
ducts which we have raised. If you have a passion 
for one of all occupations, that is but a strong plant 
out of the soil of your soul. Ambition is first a seed, 
next a growing germ, next a tree, with deep-running 
roots and wide-spreading branches. 

All one-ideaism is the result of partial culture, 
carried to an extreme. A single desire is encouraged 
till it gets beyond restraint. Such excessive desires 
may start from a good impulse or an evil one ; but, 
Vv^hen viewed in their relations, they are never really 
admirable. They necessitate vacancies in character 
which are greatly to be deplored. You would not 
praise the judgment of him who should permit one 
huge plant to grow up in his garden, and should 
take no pains to cultivate anything else. The man 
of one idea becomes weak, in many respects, for the 
sake of being strong in one. While he is overgrown 
in understanding, he is a child in understanding. 
He wants that balance of character which is essen- 
tial to true manhood. 

We are continually liable to a progress so partial, 
that it will render us more and more conceited, so 



268 A Man, 

that in what respect a right education would make 
us better, our education shall only make us worse. 
In nothing excellent, should you think to become a 
master at the expense of being too weak in a hun- 
dred other points of possible excellence. Success^ 
when this is its cost, is failure. You cannot be cor- 
dially and generally pronounced noble in one thing, 
if you are evidently mean in many things wherein 
you ought to be good. Where men see one ad- 
mirable ability, they naturally look for an accom- 
panying plurality of, at least, tolerable abilities. 
You know how w^e regard the charming musician, 
if we find in him or her no soul for anything higher 
than music. Yellow-headed ^'Robert o' Lincoln" 
sings well amid the grass of May or of June ; but 
practical men are apt to pass by this bird, lending 
not their ears to its song, because they think it is 
good for little else. How unsatisfying and tmng, 
to the thinker, is the society of those devotees of a 
single preference, those human birds of one gift, 
who sometimes command the special attention of 
j)eople ! It is recorded that Philip said to one of 
his sons, who, at an entertainment, had excelled in 
music, ''Are you not ashamed to sing so well ? " 

By observation and experience of men, we find 
them to be either well-balanced or ill-balanced in 
mind. We say of one, ''You could depend on him 
— he is solid and even." Of another, we say, "He 
is unsound — is apt to become extravagantly enthu- 
siastic. The elements of wild ultraism are in him. 
By his fanatic vehemence he would disserve the very 
cause he should profess to love." 

Some men always make too great haste to gain 



Balance. 269 

their ends. They return from their flights of zealous 
endeavor, rayless and silent, like the charred sticks 
of spent rockets. All sure minds are conservative 
— everything strong is conservative. It is weakness 
that is wanting in inertia. We say of the unsteady, 
fickle youth, that "he lacks age." We mean that 
he is deficient in the immobility of manliness. A 
circle will make far more noise in the wind than a 
sphere. Rely on it, you cannot but defeat yourself 
if you undertake a great project without balance of 
mind. You may pride yourself on the force by 
which you leave the cool thinker so far behind you; 
but do you know that it is better to be logically 
slow than fanatically fast ? 

ISTever let yourself pursue even a noble object as 
if there were nothing else noble in the world. They 
who succeed with so exclusive a passion, cannot but 
find that they have triumphed too soon. But it is 
not unwise to make a noble object paramount, if 
this is done judiciously. All great inventions, books, 
discoveries, were paramount objects while their 
authors were accomplishing them. Each of the 
famed achievements of N'ewton was, for a time, all- 
engaging to him. To Milton, the Paradise Lost 
was, undoubtedly, long an object sublimely para- 
mount. Palissy, the Huguenot potter, experimented 
indefatigably, for sixteen years, to rediscover the 
lost art of making enameled vases. These men 
knew the difference between intellectual concentra- 
tion and one-ideaism — between the solitary grap- 
plings of a well-balanced mind and the solitary 
grapplings of an unsymmetrical mind. 

You may have observed how, in each of the three 
23* 



270 A Man. 

great fields of thought — the political, the religious, 
and the literary — reputation takes either an admira- 
ble or an ignoble, a historic or a transient, bright- 
ness, according as the mind is evenly or unevenly 
developed. If the mind is harmoniously educated, 
its reputation, when universal, is fame ; if the mind 
is inharmoniously educated, its reputation, when 
universal, is only notoriety. Would you know the 
names which humanity will never let go to oblivion ? 
See, then, who of those reputed great, rose to posi- 
tion by steady, manly steps, that needed not to be 
retraced. Many were the meteors of popularity, by 
whose fleeting brilliance these highly-destined lu- 
minaries were, from time to time, half eclipsed in 
their unhasted career. Many were the Swedenborgs, 
the Fouriers, the Spurzheims, that seemed, for 
awhile, to surpass them. They sometimes had to 
hear the people pronounce them cautious and con- 
servative to a fault ; and sometimes had to see the 
people clap their hands in honor of those meteor 
men. But, in their own sure way, they persevered, 
patiently, sublimely — always going right on ! 

You see a difference of strength and of value, in 
histories of the same empire, in books of travel and 
exploration made on the same remote portion of the 
globe^ and in inventions wrought for the same 
object. These diff*erences point either to a w^ant or 
to a completeness of intellectual balance. Macaulay 
is the best English historian, because he exhibits 
such breadth of view and such spheric evenness of 
mind. Livingstone, with his well-balanced charac- 
ter, examines the lands and the tribes of Central 
Africa; and, by-and-by, his reliable pages have 



Balance. 271 

stirred all the world. The unfailing Watt turns his 
attention to the steam-engine ; and, under his steady 
and patient hand, it becomes a machine, mighty for 
every future age. Fulton applies his strong and 
cool mind to the steamboat; and, at length, the 
triumph which John Fitch, with his one-ideaism, 
only imperfectly achieved, is seen and heard, rolling 
its wheels in the Hudson river. 

There is a wise conservatism which operates to 
maintain individual force and national greatness. 
But for this, innovation and ultraism would ruin the 
race. It is easy to become an enthusiast ; it is easy 
to become fanatically devoted to a single idea. Only 
preclude from your mind all subjects but one, and, 
on that one, allow yourself to think by day and by 
night, and soon you will be astounded at the indif- 
ference of mankind to your favorite theme. There 
is some evidence for the belief, that many of the 
great men of past ages Avere slightly insane while 
pursuing their special objects. '' The extraordinary 
development of one faculty," says Mr. Bancroft, 
^^may sometimes injure the balance of the mind, 
just as the constant exercise of one member of the 
body injures the beauty of its proportions. ... It is 
a very ancient remark, that folly has its corner in 
the brain of every wise man ; and certain it is, that 
not the poets only, like Tasso, but the clearest 
minds — Sir Isaac Newton, Pascal, Spinoza — have 
been deeply tinged with insanity." And the same 
historian expresses the opinion, that Roger Williams 
pursued his favorite principle of the Sanctity of 
Conscience too exclusively ; so that it was natural 
for Bradford and his contemporaries, while they 



272 A Man. 

acknowledged the power of Williams as a preacher, 
to esteem him -'unsettled in judgment." 

l^ow, if it is true, that minds of the highest order 
and fame have been, to some extent, deranged by 
one-ideaism, should it not be presumed, that all 
aspiring minds, of lower orders, are exceedingly 
liable to become insanely attached to their special 
objects ? Dr. Rush quotes, in his work on the Diseases 
of the Mind, an account, given by an English cler- 
gyman, of Lavater, the physiognomist. It will illus- 
trate the effect which Phrenology, Music, Mesmer- 
ism, Spiritualism, Millennarianism, Deism, or any 
other favorite pursuit, naturally produces on an 
ill-balanced mind. ''I was detained," says the cler- 
gyman, ''the whole morning, by the strange, wild, 
eccentric Lavater, in various conversations. When 
once he is set a-going, there is no such thing as 
stopping him, till he runs himself out of breath. 
He starts from subject to subject, flies from book to 
book, from picture to picture ; measures your nose, 
your eye, your mouth, with a pair of compasses ; 
pours forth a torrent of physiognomy on you ; drags 
you, for a proof of his dogma, to a dozen closets, 
and unfolds ten thousand drawings ; but will not 
let you open your mouth to propose a difiiculty, and 
crams a solution down your throat before you have 
uttered half a syllable of your objection. 

"He is as meager as the picture of famine; his 
nose and chin almost meet. I read him, in my turn, 
and found little difSculty in discovering, amid great 
genius, unaffected piety, unbounded benevolence, 
and moderate learning, much caprice and unsteadi- 
ness ; a mind at once aspiring by nature, and gro- 



Balance. 273 

veling tlirough necessity ; an endless turn to specu- 
lation and project; in a word, a clever, flighty, 
good-natured, necessitous man." 

There is, perhaps, no pursuit which is favorite 
and ultimate, to so great a number of men, as that 
of wealth. The ruling passion of these aspirants, 
is acquisitiveness ; and, to many of them, it amounts 
to avarice, and leads to a sordid idolatry. Property 
is good in its place ; but it should be sought as a 
means, never as an end. The saying is not more 
witty than true, that " a man who hoards riches and 
enjoys them not, is no better off than the ass that 
carries gold and eats thistles." But consider the 
disproportion which an ill-regulated desire of wealth 
cannot but give to character. Think of a person, 
all the noble feelings of whose nature — those long- 
ings for knowledge which he felt in his youth and 
early manhood, that devotional tendency which is 
given to us all, and those benevolent sympathies 
which are ever sweet and elevating to him who cul- 
tivates them — are almost completely sacrificed to 
the lust for money ! In vain do you search in such 
a person for manly habits. He roams among the 
fair flowers, along the borders of the grand old 
forests, over the majestic mountains, across the 
green-sodded valleys, near the mighty water-falls, 
and up and down the ocean-shore ; but what is he 
seeking ? Is it the charm, the grandeur, the sublime 
splendors of natural scenery ? Is it the evidences 
of the wisdom, the goodness, and the presence of 
the Almighty God ? ]N"o ; he is seeking money, 
money, money ! He is living, and caring, and toil- 
ing, and hoping, and growing old, and paying out 

s 



274 A Man. 

the best part of himself, for money. I do not like 
the title of " rich man." In view of what it usnally 
implies, it is hardly an honor. Consider how many 
rich men there are, whose avaricious greed you 
could not satisfy, with all the beautiful frozen blood 
of California's or Australia's golden veins. "Who 
can be poorer than he that possesses nothing which 
is more valuable than houses and lands, mint-metal 
and bills of bank-stock ? Where, to such a man, is 
the blissful experience which compensates him for 
his cares, his sleeplessness, his slavish fatigues, for 
property's sake? Suppose that he succeeds, to the 
utmost, in his course of life. "Will his soul be satis- 
fied ? Will his acquisitions make softer the pillow 
of his final sleep ? Will they insure happiness to 
him after death? How much money can a dead 
man own ? How much land ? Measure the length 
and the breadth of any one of those burial-plats in 
the cemetery, and you. shall know. W^ho are the 
best and noblest men living ? Who are they ^' whose 
deeds people the vacuity of time and make it green 
and worthy," and whose posthumous influence, for 
many generations, inspires the race ? Are they 
called ^^rich men?" Are they not found among 
those who, like Agur, in the proverb, are ready to 
pray, '^ Give me neither poverty nor riches ? " 

But numerous instances of disproportioned cha- 
racter are also found among men who are devoted 
to religion. Consider the gloomy history of super- 
stitious and fanatic bigotry. I read, that Simeon, 
the Stylite, a Syrian monk of the fifth century, lived 
on the top of a pillar at Antioch, for thirty-seven 
years, that he might be nearer to God and hold 



Balance. 27 5* 

closer communion with him. A man with a passion 
for a creed and with a fixed conscience, is absurdly 
stubborn. You cannot move him from his quarters, 
by dipping a sword's point in his veins, or by using 
threats of gunpowder treatment. He will die before 
he will either retreat or capitulate. He flouts at your 
common sense ; he grimly laughs at your logic. 
Madly, he perseveres in his career of infatuated zeal 
and irrational devotion. He is ready to tear the flesh 
from his bones ; to retire from society and dwell in 
the lonely forest, in dreary dens and caves, or in the 
monastic cell ; to ascend the flaming pyre ; to fall 
before the wheels of Juggernaut. Nothing avails 
to rescue this man from the despotism of his super- 
stitious faith. Ears he has, but he will not hear ; 
eyes, but he will not see ; nerves, but he will not 
feel. ISTatural affection, reason, the sense of pain, 
and the love of life, seem to have been smitten from 
his nature. 

'' Whatever things," says Paul, '^ are true, what- 
ever things are honorable, whatever things are just, 
whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, 
whatever things are of good report ; if there be any 
virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these 
things." 

Does not this passage aim at symmetry of charac- 
ter? Does it not assume the importance, to the 
Christian, of such an education of his soul, as will 
give it spheric manliness ? Yes, this is what it en- 
compasses. The Christian is, here, contemplated, 
as a man aspiring to become a more complete man. 
I perceive, in this passage, a plea for the highest 
health, intellectual refinement, gentility, moral ex- 



276 A Man. 

cellence, and religious worth. There is as much 
embraced in it, as if Paul had said : " Brethren, be 
ye more than Christian believers ; be ye Christian 
men!" It is a great thing to be a man. Paul 
thought so ; and, therefore, he strove to raise men 
into real men — into men of truth, of honor, of jus- 
tice, of purity, of loveliness, and of good report. 
You can learn noble lessons of liberality from Paul. 
He was as free from the spirit of bigotry as you are 
from the spirit of cannibalism. He was a Christian 
preacher; and yet he seems to have been almost 
everything else that a man ought to be. Able in 
argument, as the Epistle to the Romans, if he had 
written no other, would show ; finished as a scholar ; 
vigorous as a writer ; modest when he should be so ; 
eloquent when the occasion demanded speech; and 
earnestly devoted to his mission, he was prepared to 
make himself all things to all men, that he might, 
by all means, save some. When there was need, he 
was ready to say : ^' Though I speak with the tongues 
of men and of angels, and have not charity, [love,] 
I am become as sounding brass or a tinkling cym- 
bal." When he stood amid ignorance and error, he 
was ready to say: ^'Brethren, be not children in 
understanding; howbeit, in malice [naughtiness*] 
be ye children ; but in understanding be men." And 
when there was other need, he was ready to say : 
^'Pi^ove all things ; hold fast that which is good." 

The great passage which I have quoted, and which 
appears near the close of the Epistle to the Church 
at Philippi, inculcates a lesson of self-culture. This 

■^ See Hand-Book of the Bible, by Joseph Angus, p. 57. 



Balance. 277 

culture is represented as the result of varied and 
earnest tliouglit. ''Think," says the apostle, ''on 
these things !" That is, think on the True, think 
on the Honorable, think on the Just, think on the 
Pure, think on the Lovely, think on the Well-spo- 
ken-of, think on all else that has Virtue, or that is 
deserving of Praise. 

Do not neglect philosophy, science, politics, 
poetry, history, the arts, literature, nature, the 
Bible, God. If it is true, that thy body is fearfully 
and wonderfully made, and that the intelligence 
and the wisdom displayed in its structure, point, in- 
dubitably, to a divine Designer, then do thou think 
of this temple of thy soul, and guard it with care. 
Know thyself. Know, that the very mysteries of 
thine organism are such as should deter thee from 
all self-abuse. Think of thy heart which, all day 
long, throbs unseen by thee ; and which, by that 
power it has of throbbing while thou art asleep, has 
carried thee alive through so many periods of dark- 
ness and unconsciousness. Think of those innu- 
merable currents of crimson fluid, which are pulsing 
along, just beneath thy skin. It is true, that some- 
thing of the food thou eatest becomes blood in thee, 
and something of it muscle in thee, and something 
of it bone in thee, and something of it flesh in thee. 
It is true, that thou art provided with a pair of 
lungs subject to laws of respiration, which thou 
canst not break with impunity. It is true, that 
thou hast organs of digestion, which revolt at ne- 
glect, and become impaired by misuse. It is true, 
that thy mind and thy body do, in some manner, 
mutually aflect each other, so that the one cannot 
24 



278 A Man. 

be well while the other is diseased. It is true, that 
temperance, simple food, dreamless sleep, water 
from pure sources, unvitiated air, cheerfulness, and 
congenial society, are essential to thy best welfare 
and thy highest happiness. It is true, that educa- 
tion raises the soul into a loftier life of activity and 
enjoyment. It is true, that the beauty of the divine 
character is symbolized in the green leaves of the 
trees, in the flowers by whose breath the summer 
wind is perfumed, in the rainbow, in the spotless 
crystal, and in the soft, white clouds, which are 
sometimes seen, far above the earth, tumbling over 
and over, as if they were rolling piles of wool shorn 
from the backs of great sheep in some other world ! 
It is true, that all vast bodies of water, in motion or 
in repose, are objects of grandeur. It is true, that 
every bird is a winged wonder. It is true, that the 
fish, the snail, the ant, the bee, the glow-worm, and 
the coral, are each possessors of mysterious powers. 
It is true, that every planet is marvel ously stayed in 
its orbit, and marvelously rolled on its axis. It is 
true, that the great God is in all radiance, all gravi- 
tation, all cohesion, all life. Think on these things! 
But whatever things are Honorable, should, also, 
be objects of thought to a man. Men are disposed 
to honor him who possesses sterling virtues, and 
accomplishes worthy purposes. To be heroic in a 
good cause, is always honorable. To have acquired 
great discipline of mind, extensive information, and 
a critical literary taste — this is honorable. All 
laurels, honestly won, are honorable. It is an error 
for a person to suppose himself placed in this world 
only to be religious. Intellectual culture and repu- 



Balance. 279 

tation should not be despised by the Christian. 
They will be sought by every Christian whose cha- 
racter approaches the true ideal of a man. Honor 
should not be withheld from those by whom it is 
deserved. "We owe praise, as a duty, to him who 
has well earned it. The worthies of the world have 
almost a right to expect applause. He who has in- 
vented an excellent labor-saving machine, he who 
has carved a beautiful statue, he who has composed 
a masterly book, he who has virtuously amassed 
great wealth, he who has handsomely acquitted 
himself in any public position of trust and respon- 
sibility — these all deserve honor. It is honorable, 
at all times and everywhere, to be a man. Would 
you not despise him who should deem it discredit- 
able to aspire to the honor of an independent liveli- 
hood, or to be ranked in the highest society ? We 
all were created to make as much of ourselves as 
we can. We are ennobled by the desire of honor- 
able distinction. He who would refuse to say, ^' Well 
done!" to a heroic achiever — he w^ho is ready to 
pronounce all worldly eminence unworthy of human 
longings and human exertion, cannot but be the 
possessor of a mind dwarfed by narrow views and 
stultified by fanatic devotion. 

But, remembering to think on the True and on 
the Honorable, remember, also, to think on the Just. 
There is something which makes it wrong to de- 
fraud a neighbor, to drive a mendicant from the 
door, to slander innocence, or to do as the priest 
and the Levite did. Think on these things! 

The Pure, also, is important. Habitual chastity 
is indispensable to balance of character. Manliness 



28o A Man. 

and obscenity cannot co-exist. In thought, in ex- 
pression, and in practice, thou shouldst be pure. 
Think on these things ! 

Amiable traits — gentleness that perseveres in 
forbearance, sympathies that can weep in the house 
of sorrow and of distress, a readiness in soft an- 
swers adapted to turn away wrath — these are kindly 
and beautiful qualities, without which thou art not 
a man. Think, therefore, on whatever things are 
Lovely ! 

Of Good Eeport, are winning looks and manners, 
neatness in dress, refinement in language, self-pos- 
session, respect toward parents and the aged, sim- 
plicity, freedom from conceit of self, and a scorn 
of penuriousness. Cheerfulness is always of good 
report. All progressive minds are cheerful. But, 
never of good report is the long face of sanctimo- 
nious dogmatism or of superstitious austerity. Think 
on these things ! 

Seek to be a man. Pronounce no being, no object, 
either common or unclean, till thou art certain that 
it has no Virtue, and is deserving of no Praise. 
Cultivate thyself for a glorious renascency in the 
world of the life to come. Be thou sad, in view of 
thy want of balance. "We all are far from the sym- 
metry which we might have attained. Diogenes, 
were he now alive, might reasonably take his lan- 
tern, at this day's noon, and go about to find a man. 
Has not the greatest heroism, which men have 
honored and history recorded, testified to some un- 
happy want or weakness, in him who exhibited it, 
just as the mountain points to the morass at its 



Balance. 281 

foot ? We are wanting in sphericity of character. 
"We are excellent only at certain points. Many of 
us are called learned, who, in respect to things of 
the highest importance, do not know much. Polite- 
ness is, in too many instances, designed as a con- 
cealment to the purposes of a bad heart ; and, thus, 
it resembles the graceful manners of a beautiful 
serpent. How, by a hundred thin disguises, do men 
and women try to hide deficiencies and tendencies 
in them, which they know, or which they ignorantly 
fancy, to be incompatible with the true ideal of 
symmetric human development ! So, it has come 
to pass, that w^e must needs, almost daily, look into 
faces, the cadaverous paleness of which we do not 
see, because it is concealed by a flush of health 
which a single spoonful of rain-water would wash 
ofl:* Oh ! where are the true, the noble, the well- 
balanced of the race ? In our religious ways, many 
of us conceive our behavior to be saintly, when it is 
only vulgar. What will the great God do with us ? 
Does he not bless men for their manliness ? Surely, 
he does. Let us, then, give him manly worship. 

Forget not, young man ! that thy progress needs 
have no end. Be thou aspiring. Be thou heroic. 
Do not sufier thyself to be deceived into luxurious 
relaxation. Have singleness of aim; but allow not 
thyself to become fanatically devoted to a favorite 
pursuit. Be desirous of a proportioned character ! 
Be desirous to become a man ! 
24* 



282 A Man. 

V. 

HABIT. 

The higher life of man opens with a war of apti- 
tudes. Aspiration and endeavor soon become ha- 
bitual. They are, then, in conflict, for a time, with 
habits of the mind, which were previously acquired, 
and which have had scope for continued increase in 
strength. These old habits are overcome, while 
new habits are formed, to be allies to the heroic 
passion for superiority. But, in the intermissions 
of eftbrt, there is always a liability to acquire strong 
aptitudes, opposed to the desire of progress, and 
tending to unman the man. Hence, it is important 
to know the philosophy of habit. 

By acting repeatedly, in any one way, we get a 
facility of acting in that way. All skill is thus ac- 
quired. For want of adequate practice in printing, 
in engraving, and in the use of needles, I cannot 
set types, cannot chisel epitaphs into marble, cannot 
knit stockings. Having never practiced in chewing 
tobacco, the taste of this weed sickens me. So, for 
want of adequate practice in well-doing, the bad 
man finds it hard to be a good man. But if, from 
childhood, a person should form virtuous habits, 
and only such, he would ever find it difficult to be 
other than virtuous. In this case, there would be 
little need of regeneration ; for the heart of the man 
and the spirit of God would never have been ha- 
bitually at war. Our habits are, therefore, of two 
classes — those which make it more and more easy 
for us to do wrong, and those which make it more 



Habit. 283 

and more easy for us to do right. Let us consider 
these two classes of habits. 

By frequently corrupting ourselves, in various 
modes, we require a variety of corrupt aptitudes. 
Every repetition of a sinful thought, makes more 
facile the next repetition. "We get our selfishness 
by degrees. IsTo man becomes bad at once. 'No 
demon is as vile as he will be. At first, the wrong 
principle shocks us. We refuse to treat it hospitably. 
All our instincts rise up to put it out of the heart, 
as if it were a serpent having gained access, in some 
unguarded moment, when the door was open. Such 
is ever the primal reception of a base principle. 
The earliest oath of the profane swearer makes him 
shudder. He looks round to see whether some 
divine bolt is or is not about to shiver him for his sin. 
But, by-and-by, he has sworn profanely so many 
times, that the principle of the third commandment 
has become unfamiliar to him, and the principle op- 
posite to it has become thoroughly domesticated. 
The man now swears momentarily and without 
hesitation. He does not know how often his oaths 
make good men tremble for him. 

But he who has domesticated in his heart a single 
principle of profane action, may be presumed to be 
the subject of more than one vicious habit. Indeed, 
the secret of whatever overawing power there may 
be in reckless oaths, lies in the evidence which the}^ 
afibrd, that the person possesses other and worse 
vices. The philanthropist, Howard, used to button 
his coat when near a profane man. He felt that his 
purse was then at risk. Facility, in acting according 
to one wrong principle, indicates facility in acting 



284 A Man. 

according to many wrong principles; for a single 
bad habit makes less difficult the acquisition of 
another and another. He who has accustomed 
himself to falsehood, can readily accustom himself 
to fraud. It is, therefore, dangerous to acquire even 
what may seem the most unimportant habit of 
wrong gratification. 'No such habit can be really 
unimportant. If you know that you are continually 
violating one principle of moral rectitude, you will 
think that it cannot make you much worse to violate 
other such principles. So, when you are strongly 
tempted into some new path of self-indulgence, you 
will lack that consciousness of unbroken integrity, 
which makes the soul heroic in self-denial. How 
can you long refrain from the first step, in an untried 
fascinating course of evil, if you are already addicted 
to some habit which you know to be evil ? They 
who have violated the principle of chastity, would 
tell you, if they should dare, how weak they are 
against every strong temptation, and how reckless 
they fear they would soon become, if they should be 
thrown into a situation of corrupting influences. 
If there is a young man who, on some day of w^ise 
reflection and determination, not long gone, became 
a Christian, so that, by the struggle vvith himself 
which he then made, and by the many similar strug- 
gles which he has since made, his former evil habits 
have been nearly overcome, I would caution this 
young man, lest he occasionally turn aside to walk, 
for awhile, in some little concealed path of sinful 
gratification, thinking it will not lead him into the 
great ways of evil with which it is connected. For- 
get not, dear j^outh, the inestimable value of that 



Habit. 285 

consciousness of thine, which tells thee, that thy 
virtue is at no point violated. Carefully guard the 
entrance to thy heart, so that no serpent-principle 
may crawl in and infuse there its poison. For, I 
assure thee, that one unholy habit w^ould weaken 
thine attachment to all right principles, take the 
courage out of thine eyes before the pure souls of 
earth, and make thee a coward before the God of 
heaven ! 

The constitution of the mind is such, that no evil 
habit can long be solitary. If we daily sin in one 
way, we daily sin in other ways. Hence, in the 
Scriptures, one wrong affection is often treated as 
the germ of corrupt character. The love of money 
is called the root of all evil. ''Though I speak," 
says Paul, ''with the tongues of men and of angels, 
and have not love, I am become as sounding brass 
or a tinkling cymbal." St. James teaches us, that, 
if we fail in a single point to be virtuous, we fail 
altogether. We cannot serve God and Mammon. 
The covetous man, in the parable, is pronounced a 
fool for his covetousness. This was, probably, the 
single bad habit which gave him many. The dis- 
ciple who carried the money-bag was avaricious be- 
fore he was treacherous ; and he betrayed the Master, 
that he might enrich his pocket with a few Roman 
coins. An acute and brilliant writer — Mr. Holmes 
— suggests, that " there is one thing of all our expe- 
riences, of all our thoughts, of all our misdoings, 
that lies at the very bottom of the great heap of 
acts of consciousness which make up our past life — 
something which we w^ould most dislike to tell our 
nearest friend." Oh ! that first wrong habit ! How, 



286 A Man. 

by its little and almost unseen beginnings, in the 
heart of yonder inebriated wretch, did it form that 
stream which, flowing ever onward, and ever making 
wider and deeper its channel, was destined to be- 
come the Mississippi of his vicious hardihood ! 

"Just as the broadest rivers run 
From small and distant springs, 
The greatest crimes that men have done, 
Have grown from little things/' 

A man cannot sin in such a manner, that only a 
part of his soul shall sin. In view of our divisions 
of the mind, we say that there are sins of thought, 
of imagination, of passion — the sin of avarice, of 
treachery, of revenge. But these are only names 
of different kinds of sin, which we, as units, commit. 
"We cannot be right while we are, in a single re- 
spect, wrong. Fire and fire, or water and water 
will coexist ; but put fire with water, and either the 
fire must burn up the water, or the water must put 
out the fire. Equally incapable of coexistence are 
virtue and vice. This truth indicates the extent of 
the demoralizing effect of every sin which is many 
times repeated. The good principles all go out of 
the heart when a single evil principle comes in. 
They may re-enter ; but not till their enemy shall 
have made its exit. This explains why the first 
instance, in which we acquire a facility of sinning, 
lets down so sadly our estimate of the right. It 
causes us to begin to excuse ourselves for our evil 
indulgence. By-and-by, we say that we can hardly 
help feeling as we feel, resolving as we resolve, 
doing as we do. Because our bad habit has become 



Habit. 287 

strong, we make ourselves believe it is according to 
nature. Because we find pleasure in it, we pro- 
nounce it good. So, this habit becomes more and 
more strong. So, we ourselves become less and less 
capable of heroic firmness in the hour of temptation. 
At length, we are inviolably true to nothing that is 
right. If virtuous at all, it is for utility's sake rather 
than for virtue's sake. We sometimes fear God; 
but we do not love him. "We often regret our 
wrong steps ; but not because they are wrong. All 
that was morally noble in us is gone ; and we would 
choose to appear, under the Divine gaze, marked, 
for life, with cowardice, before we would, at the 
cost of martyrdom, defend any one of all the princi- 
ples of rectitude, or oppose any one of all the prin- 
ciples of iniquity. Domesticate a single evil prin- 
ciple, acquire a single positively corrupt habit, and 
the sentinels of your heart will, one by one, leave 
their posts ; the entrance of right principles will be 
less and less frequent ; every door of access will be 
unbolted ; and Impulse, Desire, Interest, and Pas- 
sion, will come in and go out whenever they please. 
In the light of this view of the deeply and widely 
demoralizing efiect on us of a wrong habit, it were 
not strange should we henceforth regard our ca- 
pacity for habitual action with seriousness and 
trembling. The reformed man will succeed or fail, 
in the course of virtue, according to the use which 
he makes of the philosophy of habit. It is in his 
power to accustom himself to various modes of sin- 
ful indulgence. If to one, he will certainly, unless 
he soon overcomes that habit, accustom himself to 
others. 



288 A Man. 

Consider, now, in connection with tlie necessity 
by which a single bad habit tends to give rise to 
many, the fact, that the strength of unresisted habits 
is ever increasing. The more frequently we commit 
a sin, the greater is the ease with which we commit 
it, and the less able are we to discontinue the series 
of repetitions. Our unopposed habits seek to become 
our masters. They are more defiant of restraint to- 
day than they were yesterday. If they are bad, they 
cannot but become worse. If they make us per- 
ceptibly weaker against them this year than we 
were last year, they may, by-and-by, determine our 
reformation to be naturally impossible. Suppose, 
for example, you should allow yourself to acquire a 
lust for money. You would, at first, be less avari- 
cious than you would be at any point of time after- 
ward. The desire of possession in you would, un- 
less you should continually restrain it, continually 
increase. By degrees, you would become accus- 
tomed to seek property rather as an end than as a 
means. If a parent, you would think more of add- 
ing to your stock or to your real estate than of making 
your home happy, or of educating your fair-browed 
sons and daughters. That to which money should 
always be completely subservient, you would make 
completely subservient to money. You would blink 
the importance of every project which should tax your 
purse. Your habit might be permitted to become 
so free from restraint that it would unhumanize you. 
The Judases do not think of betraying innocence 
for money till their avaricious passion has become 
almost unconquerable. The root of all evil grows 
slowly into a tree with strong trunk, the branches, 



Habit. 289 

the leaves, and the fruit of which, contain deadly 
juices. And when this tree has attained its mature 
strength, what shall suffice to make it wither? 
What but that power which caused the fig-tree to 
wither in the day of the Master and his disciples ? 
The reformation of an avaricious man is one of the 
most improbable things in the world. All prayers 
for the enlargement of a miser's soul cannot but 
recoil, with a leaden heaviness, on the heart of him 
who offers them. Do you not see how much, in a 
case of this kind, is to be overcome ? I fear that 
my best Christian friend would soon become sleepy, 
were he to pray for the conversion of some stingy 
men that I have seen. 

But what is true of the habit of covetousness, is 
true of every other unrestrained bad habit. The 
history of such habits may be briefly expressed in 
the three words — strong, stronger, strongest ! In 
their most advanced stage of strength, they defy all 
human opposition. They increase, in despite of the 
hundred hearts which they provoke to hatred, and 
in despite of adverse storms. You might think that 
they would become weaker as the decrepitude and 
the hoariness of age come on ; but they do not. 
They gain power, even on the bed of death ; and 
could the avaricious man, the licentious man, or the 
inebriate, return, after his decease, there is good 
reason to believe that he might truly say of his 
vicious habit, '' It still lives ! " 

"When a person begins to form character of the 

right kind, he cannot hope that the habits of his 

previous life will not make it far more difficult for 

him to persevere in well-doing, than it would be if 

25 T 



290 A Man. 

he had never acquired them. Who has not learned, 
by experience, the strength of evil habits ? If a bad 
man begins to be a good man, he must, for years, 
be specially weak in certain j)oints. The reformed 
inebriate cannot so firmly resist the tempting glass, 
as the temperance man who has never been addicted 
to drinking. The more vicious one has hitherto 
been, the more hard will it be for him to continue 
in the course of virtue liereafter. Charles Lamb 
had rarely the power to avoid intoxicating liquor 
when presented; ''but," says Mr. Talfourd, ''he 
made heroic sacrifices in flight from it." Let no 
corrupt man, who proposes to himself to begin a 
new life, think that the possibilities of failure are 
not stronger with him this year, than they would 
have been had he commenced the work of reforma- 
tion one year ago. The greater the amount of bad 
character, the more intense must needs be the 
struggle for amendment. Do you suppose that Peter 
would so readily have begun to curse and swear, in 
that hour of the denial, if he had never been a pro- 
fane swearer before ? When I consider how wicked 
a man Paul was before his conversion, I cannot 
think it strange that he expressed fear lest he him- 
self should, at last, be a cast-away. A man's bad 
habits may become so strong, that his reformation 
shall scarcely be possible. " There is," says Bishop 
Butler, " a certain bound to imprudence and misbe- 
havior, which, being transgressed, there remains no 
place for repentance, in the natural course of things." 
Most of us know but little concerning the mighty 
wrestlings, the lonely grapplings with self, which 
have been the cost to many a man of his good reso- 



Habit 291 

lutions, his virtuous vows. Not the applause of 
fascinated thousands, the homage paid to human 
eloquence, will, in every instance, suffice to keep 
the reformed inebriate, who has become a popular 
lecturer, true to his pledge. Mr. Gough, himself, 
could easily make you weep, telling you of his 
second fall. And, in the light of these truths, do 
you not see how tender and forbearing Christian 
philanthropy should be toward those converts from 
sin and vice, who, in some evil hour, have gone 
astray ? Let it never be forgotten, that apostasy is, 
in nearly every instance, the result of old habits 
renewed by unguarded steps. It is far easier for 
some persons to be good than for others. Men set 
out in the way of the right with different inward 
weaknesses ; and should it be considered strange if 
more than a few become weary, by-and-by, and 
wander aside? And you that are perseveringly 
faithful, how should you regard these sad wanderers ? 
Should you make their apostasy a theme of un- 
charitable gossip ? Should you say, '' Let them go ? " 
Would Jesus do so ? Should you not rather yearn 
after them, and speak their names kindly, and pray 
for them with weeping earnestness, and seek them 
mth loving eyes, and take them affectionately by 
the hand, and say to them, '' Come back ! oh ! come 
back!" 

"Speak gently to the erring — 

Ye know not all the power 
With which the dark temptation came. 

In some unguarded hour. 
Ye may not know how earnestly 

They struggled, or how well, 
Until the hour of weakness came, 

And sadly thus they fell.^' 



292 A Man. 

And, with, a greater measure of jpoetic force. Burns 
gave to liis fellow-mortals the sweet counsel : 

*' Then gently scan your brother man, 

Still gentler, sister \Yoman ! 
Tho' they may gang a kennin wrang, 

To step aside is human. 
One point must still be greatly dark, 

The moving, why they do it; 
And just as lamely can ye mark, 

How far, perhaps, they rue it/' 

Many causes conspire to give rise to our aptitudes- 
Things and agents external to us, ajffect us far more 
powerfully than we wou.ld suppose. 

"Men are the sport of circumstances, when 
Circumstances are the sport of men/' 

Byron. 

"We possess, it is true, an unmeasured inner force^ 
which might make us defiant of circumstances, 
should we hut think so, and try well to prove it. 
All the great men do this. They resist the unman- 
ning force of situation. They struggle against it. 
They triumph over it, and become masters. But 
the most of us allow our circumstances to entangle 
us and hold us as spiders' webs do flies. Only let it 
be fashionable, and we are ready to take fire into 
our bosoms. Only let it be the custom to go on 
hot coals, and on them we go. "We make not our- 
selves, as we were born to do ; but Ave permit a 
hundred thousand temptations to make us. So, we 
are over-dependent, unheroic. Do you know the 
power of circumstances ? Be always pervious and 
yielding, never possess an irresistible mind, and 
from how many spiders' webs will you need to be 



Habit. 293 

extricated ! Circumstances will make you, just so 
far as you are flexible to their influence. Good cir- 
cumstances, if permitted, will tend to make you 
better ; bad circumstances, if not resisted, will tend 
to make you worse. 

Reliable statistics show that the majority of 
criminals have been intemperate men. But how 
does intemperance originate ? Follow the youth 
who is destined to become an inebriate. At first, 
he is moving, with an uncontaminated heart, within 
the precincts of parental and domestic influence. 
Next, he is delighting himself in the society of his 
playmates. ISText, he has become a companion with 
persons older than himself. After a while, he yields 
to evil guidance, and is led into the midst of scenes 
of drunkenness and corrupt merriment. A little later, 
he himself has experienced the effect of intoxicating 
drinks. Later still, he has become habitually in- 
temperate, and has lost both his respectability and 
his self-respect. Finally, he has received his edu- 
cation in the school of recklessness and inebriety, 
and is ready to graduate to the poor-house, to the 
state-pi'ison, or to the gallows. " Can a man," says 
the proverb, " take fire in his bosom, and his clothes 
not be burned ? Can one go on hot coals, and his 
feet not be burned ? " 

In whatever we frequently indulge, in that we 
tend to form a habit of indulgence. The Christian 
is not so strong as he should be, unless he has 
trained himself to fight well against the power of 
situation. All apostasies result from the prevalence 
of external over internal force. Men fall from virtue 
in consequence of the unresisted gravity of circum- 
25=^ 



294 A Man. 

stances. Tlie devils that haunt this world, and the 
powerful evil men in it, lay beautiful toils for us, in 
the various shapes which they give to human affairs 
and to the fashions. Illusions, bright but danger- 
ous, throng along the entire path of our pilgrimage. 
"We are wooed by way-side sirens. We shall never 
reach either the hights of worldly honor or the land 
of Beulah, unless we go right on. 

In no period of life do circumstances exhibit more 
power to affect the mind than in childhood. Is there 
not, this day, many a hapless wretch in the world, 
who might wander amid his own self-ruins ; and, 
while the walls of his character are crumbling down, 
and the ghosts of wasted opportunities are flitting 
in the twilight of his gloomy mind, might put his 
hand on his heart, and in words of agony and of 
v/arning, exclaim, "^^ Youth is the seed-time of life ! '' 
When I hear a lad uttering profane oaths, I almost 
involuntarily shrug my shoulders, and think I ought 
to say to him : '' Foolish boy ! I fear thou art sowing 
the seeds of a great hell in thy little bosom ! " It is not 
unreasonable to suppose, that Judas Iscariot was, in 
his early days, a bad fellow. ^'He that soweth to 
the flesh," says Paul, ^'must of the flesh reap cor- 
ruption." When Mohammed was in his youth, a 
woman of Khaibar, where he had stopped, secretly 
put poison into a cup, the contents of which he was 
about to drink. He quaffed the fatal beverage ; but, 
having tasted the drug, he spit it out, before it had 
stung his vitals, and Avas saved. But, years after- 
ward, when Mohammed was an old man, lying on 
his death-bed, he groaned in the deepest agony, ex- 
claiming, '' The veins of my heart are throbbing 



Habit. 295 

with ttie poison of Khaibar ! " So it is with the 
poison which gets into the young soul ; it throbs 
and throbs there, forever ! I look on some of the 
old sinners that I meet, and I say to myself: " These 
human oaks, with their gnarled grain, will, un- 
doubtedly, always be the same hard timber. Never, 
since childhood, have they been without bad habits. 
The influences of situation have tended to misedu- 
cate them ; and, with these influences, they them- 
selves have, all along, conspired. Should they 
attempt a work of reformation, it is probable that 
they would soon tire of the struggle against their 
tough habits, and renounce the undertaking." 

The best man living is liable to become degraded 
by external forces and associations. Constantly herd 
with the beasts of the field, and, I^ebuchadnezzar- 
like, you would, by-and-by, have hairs growing on 
you as eagles' feathers, and nails as birds' claws. 

But it is well to consider the power which we 
possess, of resisting the influence of circumstances. 
Every man is so constituted, that he can truly say : 
" I am ; I think ; I do this ; I do that." The ability 
thus to use the pronoun /, involves freedom of w^ill. 
No stone, no tree, no planet can make an aflirma- 
tion which shall have Jin it. The brute animals can, 
it is true, choose and refuse ; but not so extensively 
as we can. "We can choose and refuse ; but not so 
extensively as angels and Grod can. We are, how- 
ever, always free, in will. Our bodies may be chained. 
We maybe restrained by the force of situation ; but 
situation and body are not ourselves. They are ex- 
ternal to us. We always know enough of what we have 
done, to be sure we could, in a thousand instances, 



296 A Man. 

have done otherwise. All day long, we are conscious 
of inner freedom. The very captive is conscious 
that he has power. When Paul was in the Mam- 
mertine prison, at Rome, he had power. Polycarp 
had power, even when he was under the power of 
the proconsul. Lawrence, while roasting over the 
martyr-fire, had power. 'No man was ever so little 
his own master, as not to be able to will either 
rightly or wrongly. Do you see what power is this ? 
There have been men — say rather, there have been 
women, feeble, delicate, incapable of enduring long- 
continued fatigue ; and yet, having espoused the 
cause of truth and virtue, nothing could shake their 
resolution. They would have preserved their moral 
integrity, though at the expense of being hurled 
over the brink of a precipice, a thousand feet down- 
ward. The dungeon, with its gloom, its ground 
strewn with crumbling skulls, and its walls sweating 
with cold moisture ; the rack, the cross, the stake, 
the lions' den — either of these had been utterly 
powerless, as a means of making them willing to be 
wrong. They could have yielded. Only a few words 
had been necessary to insure to them a complete 
deliverance from the inflictions of persecuting au- 
thority. Two of the English martyrs did recant. 
They were Cranmer and Bilney. But they could 
not endure the consciousness of their self-belying 
cowardice. They knew that they were free to be 
true or false. The thought of having made a wrong 
choice had become their persecutor.^ So, they soon 
repented of their apostasy; and Cranmer held the 
very fingers with which he had signed his recanta- 
tion, in the flames, exulting while they burned oflF, 



Habit. 297 

and Bilney went to the stake, clapping his hands 
and shouting. 

Something of this power to will rightly or wrongly 
is in e\eYj man. When a person's volitions are de- 
cisive, we call him firm. True firmness differs, 
widely, from stubbornness. Men may be willful, as 
the ox or the horse sometimes is. But, by firmness, 
is meant a rational, not a passionate, willfulness. 
Why will not the honest man choose to cheat his 
neighbor ? Why will not the Christian return evil 
for the evil which he has received ? We know that 
there is power unconquerable and virtue inviolable 
in some persons. You could not buy their wills 
with gold, with flattery, or with the illusion of high 
ofB.ce. 

In nearly all the forenoon of life, and in a large 
part of life's afternoon, we obviously have power to 
overcome our bad aptitudes, and to acquire good 
ones. As we will to be, so we tend to be. Many a 
man has spent his energies on twenty or more acres 
of land, who might, in some new and great way, 
have moved the world. There is many a beggar who 
might have been a millionaire — or something better. 
One writer has said, that " a noble aim will put fire 
into the dullest soul, turn peasants into apostles, 
and disciples into martyrs." Luther might always 
have been only a monk, had he never aimed from 
monkhood up to manhood. Said Plautus, "Tibi 
seris^ tihi metis'' — You sow for yourself, you reap 
for yourself. And the Scriptures say, ^' Whatsoever 
a man soweth, that shall he also reap." Misappli- 
cation has raised countless crops of ^^wild oats," 
where there might have been wheat; and unnum- 



298 A Man. 

bered dwarfs in intellect, where there migJit have 
been giants. Lord Francis Jeifrey might have ap- 
plied his terrible power as a critic, in annihilating 
dilettanteism^ and in enconraging aspiring genius. 
Byron might always have confined his pen to lofty 
themes. Paine onight have written a wholesome 
book on politics, in place of that unwholesome one, 
entitled, ''The Age of Reason." 

But how may our power be made to avail against 
habits which we ought to overcome ? There are 
two modes by which such habits may be resisted. 
We may form either new evil habits or new good 
habits, which shall be opposed to habits already 
acquired. A habit of extravagance will be resisted 
by a habit of covetousness. The penurious man 
may cease from tobacco-chewing, because it costs 
him so much. The ofiice-seeker may cease from 
open profanity, because he loses votes by it. Does 
not what we call worldly morality spring from the 
antagonism between interest and impulse ? But 
when wrong habits are thus overcome, the subject 
of them is but little improved. The reformation 
which takes place does not involve a change from 
evil principles of action to good ones ; but from evil 
ones to other evil ones. 

The true mode of resisting and conquering wrong- 
habits is, evidently, by forming habits which are 
entirely right, and persevering in them. Pure prin- 
ciples, I have said, will not coexist with corrupt 
ones. A man cannot, at the same time, be partly 
right and partly wrong. Whenever we give free- 
dom to a habit, we domesticate the principle of that 
habit. Therefore, the genuine reformation of a man 



Habit. 299 

begins when be completely changes from corrnpt 
principles of action to pure ones. This change may 
be wrought in a brief period of time. But the refor- 
mation itself is a long work. It involves a contest of 
habit against habit. Many a good man has to strug- 
gle, harder than we know, against aptitudes which, 
if not constantly opposed, would lead him to apos- 
tasy. The young sinner can overcome his reckless- 
ness far sooner and easier than the old sinner can 
overcome his. Long after the day of Pentecost, 
Peter had not entirely mastered his headstrong im- 
pulsiveness ; for Paul himself mentions an instance 
in which he had to withstand him to his face. 

But there is one thing which is adapted to encou- 
rage every person who, after years of wrong indul- 
gence, is striving to live a right life. The longer 
we persevere in virtuous action, the more easy it 
becomes for us to act virtuously. By continually 
doing well, we acquire stronger and stronger apti- 
tudes for well-doing. Those who have been, for 
many years, faithfully devoted to truth and purity, 
find but little difficulty in resisting the most power- 
ful temptations. They have bought this facility of 
self-denial and virtuous action — who knows how 
dearly ? Some people affirm that it is far more easy 
to commit sin than to do right. I grant that it is so 
in most instances. But consider those persons who 
have acquired excellent habits of thought and 
action. Do they not hate sin ? Do they not shrink 
from vice, as they would from a venomous serpent? 
Are they not in bitter agony, whenever they think 
they have done a wrong act? Let a man undertake 
to raise a good crop of wheat, and it will not be 



30O A Man. 

very easy to induce Mm to scatter bad seed in his 
field. You could not liire him to corrupt his soil 
with such seed. If he should scatter any, he would 
do it by accident or by carelessness ; and, as soon 
as he should find out what he had done, he would, 
if possible, go and pick up the kernels. If they 
should already have germinated and taken root, he 
would, if possible, go and pull all the germs out of the 
ground. But it would be very easy for a man to sow 
foul seed, if he had never sown much seed of the 
opposite kind. So, it is easy for a man to be a reck- 
less sinner, if he has never been anything else. It 
is easy for a man to be licentious, if he has^ for years, 
given large license to his passions. And it is easy- 
let many observe this — for a man to be miserly and 
mean, if he has never disciplined himself to gener- 
osity and nobleness. 

^* For use almost can change the stamp of nature, 
And either curb the devil, or throw him out 
With wondrous potency.^^ Shakspeare. 

VI. 

TEMPERAMENT. 

Every person possesses some prevailing peculiarity 
of organization. "We call it his temperament. This 
constitutional peculiarity is no part of the person's 
mind. It tends, however, to determine his mental 
character. It does not give him thoughts and feel- 
ings ; but it causes him to think and feel in certain 
modes rather than in others. It has, therefore, an 
important bearing on aspiration or the desire of 
superiority. 



Temperament. 301 

Temperament is both national and individual. 
Travelers find the people of every country to be, in 
some general respect, constitutionally difierent from 
the people of every other country. Montesquieu 
remarked, that " Germany is the place to travel in, 
Italy to reside in for a time, England to think in, 
and France to live in." I suppose it is much more 
difficult for a Frenchman to be habitually pious, 
than for an Englishman. Mr. Beecher, in his lecture 
on Patriotism, hints, that a genuine Yankee never, 
for a long time, worships anything. Men's tastes 
and habits differ according to the country to which 
they belong. The general temperament of a people 
living on mountains, differs greatly from that of a 
people living in valleys. The inhabitants of a rough, 
wild region, are rugged and difficult to conquer. 
Such are the Swiss and the people of Scotland. 
Such were the Waldenses. The dwellers on low- 
lands are less industrious, less honest and patriotic, 
and more prone to luxury, than the dwellers on 
highlands. The inhabitants of the coast are found 
to have less local attachment and more of a cosmo- 
politan disposition, than the inhabitants of the inte- 
rior. Heat relaxes muscle and mind, and promotes 
idleness and sensuality. Hence, the African peojole 
are generally indolent and voluptuous. Cold, on 
the contrary, contracts the body, and tends to con- 
tract the mind. The Esquimaux are not remarkable 
for intellectual expansion, nor are the inhabitants 
of Lapland. A moderate climate, like our own, is 
found to be most favorable for the develojDment 
of the mind. But temperament, considered as a 
specific peculiarity of man, is a subject of inquiry 
26 ' ' 



302 A Man. 

vastly more important to each of us, than general 
or national temperament. 

The ancients distinguished four temperaments. 
They gave to them names which are still in use. By 
these names, they intended to indicate the diifferent 
bodily peculiarities, on which they supposed the 
temperaments to be founded. Each appeared to 
them the result of the excess of some one of the 
principal fluids of the body. The bilious tempera- 
ment represented the excess of bile in the system ; 
the sanguine temperament, the excess of blood ; the 
jpAZ^^?72a^z^ temperament, the excess of phlegm; and 
the melancholic temperament, the excess of what they 
called the black bile. We apply to the tempera- 
ments the ancient names, but do not explain them, 
as the ancients did. We suppose that each tempe- 
rament depends on the preponderance of some one 
of that variety of systems called the digestive, the 
circulatory, the respiratory, and the nervous. 

The bilious temperament is favorable to the deve- 
lopment of mental force. It is the temperament of 
the ambitious man. It is accompanied by restless- 
ness of spirit. Rulers and conquerors have it. It 
was the temperament of Caesar, and of William the 
Third. It tends to give assurance, firmness, con- 
stancy, and a love of hard occupation. 

The phlegmatic, or, as it is sometimes called, the 
lymphatic, temperament, tends to give rise to very 
difterent traits of character. It is accompanied by 
self-possession, coolness, reserve. He who has this 
temperament is conservative. He receives every- 
thing with calmness. His mind moves slowly. He 
is rarely zealous. Novelties make but a slight im- 



Temperament. 303 

pression on him. He adheres to the old, greatly 
disliking that which is revolutionary. He loves a 
quiet situation, and is predisposed to luxurious in- 
dulgence. 

The sanguine temperament imparts liveliness to 
the mind. It is accompanied by fickleness, ardor, 
and impulsiveness. It makes the mind quick to 
perceive, active, and zealous ; but predisposes its 
subject to undertake more than he will accomplish. 
He is apt to be feebly tenacious of experience, and 
ill able to endure trial. 

The melancholic temperament is usually indicated 
by a shaded complexion. It is accompanied by fire 
and activity. Its subject is deeply thoughtful, and 
is apt to be mournfully meditative. He is not open 
in heart, but is constantly reserved. He loves power. 
His object is self-advancement. He is predisposed 
to regard other men with suspicion. As a ruler, he 
inspires a respect which is full of fear. Caligula, 
Tiberius, and Robespierre, had this temperament. 
It is the temperament of l^apoleon the Third. In 
poets and artists it shows itself in a gentler form, 
and gives the mind a longing for that which is 
higher than reality. It inclines the devotee of 
science to skepticism, and the devotee of philosophy 
to transcendentalism. Such are some of the mental 
characteristics which naturally accompany each of 
the four acknowledged temperaments. 

But, in discussing the relation of temperament 
to the mind, a question of great moment presents 
itself — namely, whether a person can or cannot 
neutralize the efiect of his temperament on his 
powers of thought and of feeling. I consider it not 



304 A Man. 

impossible to sliow, that this question may with jus- 
tice be answered aifirmatively. While every man's 
mind is more or less influenced by his temperament, 
still it is in the power of every man to counteract 
the influence of his temperament. So, both heat 
and cold tend to produce a change in the temper 
of iron ; but the skillful blacksmith knows how to 
counteract the effect of each. The conclusion would 
be a terrific one, that a man is doomed to be what 
his temperament is best adapted to make him. If 
this were so, then before you could justly blame an 
inebriate for his evil habit, you would need to ascer- 
tain that it was no easier for him to become a 
drunkard than for any other man. And if this were 
so, then should your opponent, in a free discussion, 
fly into a passion, and treat you ungentlemanly, it 
would be your duty to learn his temperament before 
you should resolve never to debate with him again. 
And should you find his temperament such as to 
make it very easy for him to become fiery and pug- 
nacious, then, of course, you should forgive and 
forget his offensive act, and say to him : ^^My good 
friend, you are certainly not to be blamed for thus 
insulting me. Our common mother, N"ature, fitted 
you for just such manners." It is not infrequently 
that you hear vicious men defending and justifying 
themselves with the words : '^ It is my nature to be 
what I am, and to do what I do." So, l^ero might 
have said, that it was according to his nature to set 
Rome on fire, and then repair to a neighboring hill- 
top, and play on a musical instrument, while the 
city of the Csesars was burning. So, Judas Iscariot 
and Benedict Arnold might have said, that they had 



Temperament. 305 

natures fitting them, the one to betray Jesus Christ, 
and the other to betray his country. Can you not 
overcome the effect of your temperament ? Must 
you be what you are, by nature, peculiarly fitted to 
be ? Then, when a person charges you with folly, 
or with wickedness, before he has learned what 
your temperament is, you may not inconsistently 
tell him that he charges you unreasonably, since, in 
truth, you are just as wise and good as the Creator 
made you to be. If this theory is true, Avoe be to 
the preacher who denounces a wicked man before 
he has ascertained the effect of that man's tempera- 
ment on his mind. And if this theory is true, 
reason would suggest the absurdity of trying to 
convert vicious men who, by some unchangeable 
peculiarity of individual organization, are fitted for 
an immoral life. It would, also, suggest that, as 
God has made such wicked persons to be what they 
are, it were but wisdom to call them poor sinners, 
and let them go. 

But the truth is, that temperament is never an 
irresistible bar to reformatory endeavors. In every 
person, are powers by which he can become almost 
what he will. Self-education has no bounds fixed 
by unrelenting necessity. The parent knows that, 
though his child possesses the worst of tempera- 
ments, yet, under wise management, that child can 
become a sober, intelligent, and useful member of 
society. And hence the parent draws back his 
young son from the evil path, in which it is so easy 
for him to tread. In well-selected moments, he 
speaks to that opening mind of the sweet elevation 
and honors of a life of goodness and manly daring. 
26* u 



3o6 A Man. 

He throws suitable books in the boy's way. He 
puts him under careful and judicious instructors. 
At length, the boy learns that he was not born to 
be, in any respect, meaner than everj^body else ; but 
was born to be brave and noble. Years roll on, 
and, out in the noisy, dusty world, that son begins 
to act for himself. His aim is high ; he is ambitious ; 
he is energetic. It is evident that his career will 
be neither a common nor a dishonorable one. ITow, 
what is it that is bearing him on to his lofty des- 
tiny ? Is it the influence of his native temperament ? 
IsTo ; for that, as we have assumed, was adapted 
only to lead him to disgrace and infamy. Is it the 
imperishable effect of the parental influence, under 
which we assumed that he spent his early years ? 
It must needs be this in part; but much more is it 
the awakened and disciplined powers of the young 
man's aspiring mind, in obedience to which circum- 
stances, both bodily and external to the body, both 
opposing and favoring, become either weak diflScul- 
ties or strong helpers. 

It will not avail you anything to pronounce this 
a fictitious instance ; for you will find that the pic- 
ture I have drawn has had a corresponding reality 
in more than one earnest mind, accomplishing 
triumphs in the world, and building for itself a solid 
and admirable character. Take Martin Luther for 
an instance. It is recorded, that he was character- 
ized by great excitability of temperament. He was, 
at times, almost furious. Douglas Jerrold assures 
us, that ^^when he wanted to crush the devil, he 
threw ink at him." His words often issued from 
his mouth like volleys of cannon-shot. It is, per- 



Temperament. 307 

haps, not too mucli to say tliat there were days on 
which he could have chased a thousand, and two 
like him have put ten thousand to flight. " I was 
born," he says, *^'to fight with devils and factions. 
This is the reason that my books are so boisterous 
and stormy. It is my business to remove obstruc- 
tions, to cut down thorns, to fill up quagmires, and 
to open and make straight the paths." In harmony 
with this sentiment, is that heroic outburst of his, 
to the messenger whom Spalatin had sent to warn 
him not to visit the Diet of "Worms: ^'If there 
were as many devils in Worms, as there are tiles on 
the roofs of its houses, I would go on ! " 

It cannot but be admitted, that Luther Avould 
never have been such a man as he was, but for his 
temperament. This contributed to give him his 
modes of thought, of feeling, and of expression, and 
to make him a more striking terror to evil doers. 
Tou will not, however, say that it was a good tem- 
perament. He himself seems to have well known, 
that, under its influence, he was often excessively 
impetuous and violent. ''But if I must," said he, 
necessarily have some failing, let me rather speak 
the truth with too great severity, than once to act 
the hypocrite and conceal the truth." 

iSTow, do you not know that many a person, 
having a native excitability similar to that of Luther, 
has ended his career on the gallows ? Something 
in Lu.ther's early associations, and something in his 
own soul, that forced his wild temperament to be- 
come a servant of good to him, and to humanity, 
were what secured to him the power and the fame 
of a reformer. His temperament did not give him 



3o8 A Man. 

his character; but it affected his mind, and ever 
tended to affect it badly. Mirabeau, of France, had, 
it should seem, a similar fire born in his blood; but 
how different was his character from that of Luther ! 
You can find burly fist-fighters, outside of jail, who 
might boast of a temperament like Martin Luther's. 
But it is one thing to have a temperament like his, 
and another thing to live a life like his. It is one 
thing to let the mind become subservient to an evil 
temperament, and another thing to keep the body, 
with its temperament, under, and bring it into sub- 
jection. 

But it is hardly necessary to resort to history for 
instances adapted to prove the position that a person 
with an unfortunate temperament can become good 
and great. "W^e know that, in the common walks 
of life, there are those who w^ould, long since, have 
lapsed into dissoluteness, had they allowed them- 
selves to live according to the dictates of native 
temperament. Are there not virtuous persons having 
temperaments fitting them for vicious lives ? Are 
there not sober persons having temperaments fitting 
them for inebriety? Surely, you will admit, that 
there is many a man who would find it far easier to be 
a temperament man than to be a temperance man. 
The conclusion is, therefore, inevitable, that a man's 
character and destiny are not necessarily determined 
by his temperament. It is readily granted, that 
temperament strongly and necessarily affects these. 
It is conceded that temperament shows itself, more 
or less plainly, in every manifestation of individual 
energy. But it does not, unless permitted to do so, 
control the mind. It modifies a person's modes of 



Temperament. 309 

thinking, of feeling, of speaking, and of acting ; but 
it does not, by necessity, give rise to tliese modes. 

But how may temperament be kept under, and 
brought into subjection? The settlement of this 
question obviously depeuvds on the settlement of 
another — namely, whether the effect of temperament 
is or is not susceptible of increase or diminution. 
It will soon appear that the latter question may, 
with justice, be answered affirmatively. 

I have observed, that the temperament of a person 
tends to give rise to the modes in which he thinks, 
feels, speaks, and acts. But is it not clear, that if 
your temperament gives you a melancholy turn, 
you can either increase or diminish that effect ? I 
do not say that you can increase or diminish your 
temperament, but that you can increase or diminish 
its effect. If you naturally have a j)redisposition to 
fickleness, you know that you can become either 
more or less fickle. This which I communicate is 
nothing new. Every wise physician considers the 
temperament of his patient, and if that temperament 
tends to promote low-spiritedness, he prescribes in 
such a way as to counteract its effect. You know 
how to speak to some of your invalid or hypochon- 
driac friends, so as not to increase their morbid 
dejection. ITot only disease and adversity, but also 
even an ill-timed word, may give a sad increase to 
the effect of an unhappy temperament. How often 
some affliction is mentioned, as having fallen on one 
who, in view of his temperament, is ill constituted 
to endure it ! There is none of us that does not 
sometimes realize the truth, that the effect of tem- 
perament can be either increased or diminished. 



310 A Man. 

The thoughtful parent is slow to use the rod on the 
child that is constitutionally excitable. The wife 
learns, at length, the temperament of her husband, 
and if he is naturally phlegmatic she knows how to 
rouse him. "We regard as culpable, those who, in 
their dealings with other people, do not, in some 
respects, accommodate themselves to the variety of 
temperaments which they meet. Is not the teacher 
deemed, by us, unqualified for his occupation, if he 
enacts rules or imposes penalties irrespective of the 
temperaments of his pupils ? And do w^e not pro- 
nounce the minister unwise, if he does not somehow 
adapt himself to the temperament of the sinner 
whom he wishes to gain over to the side of virtue 
and piety ? 

In this allowance and this demand which we 
make for temperament, we practically affirm that 
its efiect can be either increased or diminished. 
Indeed, who is there who would not, if he were to 
counsel some you-th how to rear for himself a manly 
character, remind him of the extent to which he 
can control his physical system ? ^' Be it your care, 
young man" — so every sound adviser would say — 
'^timely to set a guard against your temperament. 
Study that temperament w^ell. Learn how it affects 
your mind. Be rigid with yourself, and keep your 
body under. So, shall you live down that in your 
physical constitution, which tends to bear you to an 
inglorious destiny, and shall at length reach some 
hight of sterling nobleness." 

The true statement, in respect to the subject under 
discussion, appears to be this : Temperament is a 
certain peculiarity of bodily organization, by which 



Temperament. 311 

the mind is more or less afFected. It is not the mind 
itself, or any part of the mind ; bnt it is something 
which exerts an inflnence on the mind. It modifies 
the mind's habits. It makes it easier or more difii- 
cult for a person to act in one way than in another 
— to pursue one course of life rather than another. 
If unopposed, it cannot but contribute largely to 
form character and determine destiny. Most people, 
it must be admitted, live according to temperament. 
Of some persons we say, that they act from impulse. 
We mean that they generally give scope to their 
native temperament. They think and speak as it 
is most .easy for them to do, though their modes of 
thinking and of speaking may be very absurd. If 
it is their nature to be vain, they leave nature to its 
course. If it is their temperament to be excitable, 
they allow themselves, on small occasions, to become 
excited beyond self-control. If it is their tempera- 
ment to look on the dark side of things, they per- 
mit themselves to do so, and become morbidly 
melancholy. They are, in short, the children — nay, 
the victims of temperament. But while these weak 
persons are living their unprofitable lives, there are 
other persons — we all know that there are — who 
are forcing their minds to act in modes almost 
entirely difierent from those dictated by tempera- 
ment. If their blood naturally runs too slowly, they 
make it run faster. They do not use intoxicating 
drinks, either. They stir themselves. At all events, 
they manage to counteract the effect which their 
bodily sluggishness has on their minds. If, on the 
contrary, they are constitutionally too sanguine, 
they endeavor to neutralize the effect of their native 



312 A Man. 

temperament, by cultivating habits of coolness and 
reserve. Thus, though, not able to destroy their 
temperament, they are successful in opposing its 
tendency to determine their modes of thought, of 
feeling, of expression, and of action. 

These persons are the heroic of the race, the aris- 
tocracy of merit. Gradually, they attain to honorable 
distinction. Other men consider the many difficul- 
ties, pertaining both to physical constitution and to 
early situation, against which they, for years, have 
had to struggle ; they observe how, by a steady 
progress, they have continued, in clouds and in sun- 
shine, their work of self-culture ; and, with admira- 
tion, those observers point to them as instances of 
true manliness, as exemplars to young ambition. 

But an interesting point of inquiry, in respect to 
temperament, is whether it does or does not affect 
the mind more than circumstances which are ex- 
ternal to the body. On one side of this question, it 
can be maintained, that every person has a tempera- 
ment, which, in all his earthly life, seems not to 
leave him. This peculiarity makes him, in many 
respects, different from everybody else. In conse- 
quence of it, he is recognized as swift-blooded, as 
slow-blooded, as having a turn to despondency, or 
as capable of great endurance. This peculiarity of 
individual organization is liable to show itself in 
every sentence which he utters, and in every act 
which he performs. It makes him take life differ- 
ently, death differently, food differently, and drink 
differently from the manner in which other men 
take these things. It appears in his anger, in his 
love, in his prejudices, in his greetings, in his fare- 



Temperament. 313 

wells, and in his pursuit of favorite objects. It can 
be maintained, that a man expresses Ms emotions, 
before sucli great natural scenes as Mount Vesuvius 
or tlie Niagara Falls, according to the temperament 
which he has. It can be maintained, that the 
phlegmatic temperament will make a man to be a 
very diflerent schoolmaster, preacher, lawyer, mili- 
tary hero, or Christian, from that which either the 
melancholic or the sanguine temperament would 
make him. It can also be maintained, that, by 
knowing a person's temperament, we can tell 
whether he is or is not predisposed to excitability, 
fickleness, firmness, luxurious indulgence, conserva- 
tism, obtuseness, or hypochondriac depressions. It 
can, furthermore, be maintained, that most persons 
think, speak, and act in such modes as temperament 
makes most easy for them. In conceding that these 
several positions can be maintained, it is, of course, 
acknowledged, that temperament strongly afiects 
the mind. But let us see what can be maintained 
on the other side of the question. 

In thefirstplace, it is evident that the mental powers 
of every person were originally developed entirely 
by the influence of things and agents, external to 
the body. The child receives, by birth, its tempera- 
ment and the germ of its mind ; but all its mental 
education is primarily the result of impressions made 
on the senses. Every incident which transpires 
before the child's open eyes, contributes to its intel- 
lectual development. Your education would never 
have been begun, but for external things and agents. 
It is true, that your temperament modified the effects 
produced on your mind by outside sources of in- 



314 A Man. 

liuence. But could your temperament alone, or the 
germ of your mind alone, or both these acting 
together, have developed your mental powers ? "Was 
it not by impressions on your senses, that you learned 
the A B C's ? Think what sort of being you would 
be, if, when a child, you had been shut in a place 
of darkness and silence, and kept there till now. 
The case of poor Casper Hauser will show you, that, 
under such circumstances, your temperament would 
not have made you either much better or much 
worse. 

But let us consider the mind, at a more advanced 
age. How far, in comparison with external things 
and agents, does the temperament of the grown 
person tend to determine his character and his des- 
tiny ? You say, that a person's temperament alw^ays 
affects his mind, and contributes to give him modes 
of thought, of feeling, of expression, and of action. 
I admit this. But do you not see that a person's own 
temperament is only one source of influence tending 
to modify his mental action ? Consider, now, how 
numerous are the sources of influence outside of the 
person. And is it not reasonable to suppose, that 
some one of these sources should produce an effect 
on the person's mind, as strong as that produced by 
his temperament? Conceive, if you can, the extent 
to which books, associates, travel, amusement, 
adversity, bereavement, food, drink, climate, preach- 
ing, work, sickness, love, perhaps marriage, and 
other things, beyond calculation in number, have 
contributed to form your character. Ought not the 
effect on j^our mind, of some one of these external 



Temperament. 315 

realities, to be supposed to be far greater than that 
of your temperament ? Certainly it ought. 

But we do not teach that the mental character is 
the creation of circumstances. This was the error 
of Robert Owen, of England."^ He seems not to 
have considered, that the mind of every grown per- 
son has powers of its own, by which it can select 
and modif}^, or resist and overcome, circumstances. 
These powers can either yield or not yield to the 
influence of circumstances. 

But how often it is the case that the mind is lulled 
to an ignoble passivity, or to a weak compliance, by 
the associations and the incidents of situation ! Does 
the temperament of any young clerk, in a saloon or 
in a hotel, endanger his character, as much as the 
circumstances surrounding him ? Appeals from evil 
sources are never wanting to him who thinks to 
make something of himself. Who of us has never 
gone out, like false Peter, and wept bitterly, on ac- 
count of some treacherous denial, wrung out of the 
soul by the force of circumstances ? "What Chris- 
tian is not weak against some temptations ? 

Still, it is obvious, that by an application of men- 
tal force, every person can successfully counteract 
the power of debasing circumstances, and can ap- 
propriate the power of circumstances adapted to 
elevate his mind. But, in the same manner, the 
effect of an unhappy temperament may easily be 
neutralized. The higher part of man is the inner 
man. In what manner this is connected with the 

^' See note on page 299 of Dugald Stewart's Active and Moral 
Powers of Man, revised by Dr. Walker of Cambridge. 



31 6 A Man. 

body, we know not ; but we know that it is some- 
thing different from the body and from everything 
else that we see. The physical man affects the inner 
man, but never so as to make it become what it will 
not. There is always a ]30wer in you, which renders 
you capable of resoluteness and resistance. You 
know that you can choose one thing and reject an- 
other — that you can admit one force and oppose 
another. This power is, in no instance, necessarily 
governed in its action. If it is, then you are a ma- 
chine, and not a man. Your temperament some- 
times prompts you to choose in one way rather than 
in another, but it does not irresistibly determine 
your choice. Can you not, in any moment, act in a 
manner contrary to that which would be according 
to your temperament? Because it is natural for 
you to be fickle, is it therefore necessary for yoa to 
be fickle? Because you are by nature excitable, is 
it impossible for joii to acquire the trait of self- 
control ? Let this be your doctrine, and you shall 
deserve ridicule when you blame a person for any 
evil act or habit which is in harmony with his tem- 
perament. 

Nothing is more true than that the mind can 
exert itself, and can succeed, in opposition to the 
influence of the body. Though it is a man's nature 
to be bad, we know that he can become good. In 
despite of your temperament, you can become a 
Christian, can be brave rather than cowardly, can 
repress your passions when they begin to rise, can 
acquire the quality of perseverance if you have it 
not, can even attain to the highest manhood. There 
is no man of a solid character and a high reputa- 



Temperament. 3 1 7 

tion, who would not tell you that the merit which 
mankind honors and which the historian celebrates, 
is not a thing that temperament made it easy to 
gain ; but is a worth which w^as bought by a self- 
opposition, carried on with resoluteness and patience, 
for many long years. And such a man would tell 
you that, by those solitary wrestlings with self, the 
cost of a golden and enduring reputation, habits 
were in time acquired which bore scarcely any in- 
dications of the effect of temperament. The grand 
lesson which the records of departed heroism teach 
us, is that in the conflict between flesh and blood, 
on the one side, and the inner man on the other, 
the latter will triumph, as surely as it maintains the 
struggle. And when the victory is won, it will not 
seem to have cost too much. So, to Demosthenes, 
when he had become a powerful orator, and had 
tasted the sweetness of Grecian praise, it could not 
have seemed too much that he had once maintained 
a long and painful contest with himself. And so, 
to Paul, in his mature years, it could not have 
seemed too much that he had kept his body under, 
and brought it into subjection, lest, by any means, 
when he had preached to others, he himself should 
be a cast- away. 

The conclusion, to which the foregoing discussion 
has brought us, cannot but be obvious. It may be 
expressed in the following manner : Does or does 
not temperament affect the mind more than circum- 
stances external to the body ? It does not. First, 
because the development of the mental powers of 
the child is entirely dependent on things and agents 
external to the body. Secondly, because the tem- 
27* ^ 



31 8 A Man. 

perament of the grown person is but a single source 
of injluence, tending to modify his mental action ; 
whereas, the sources of influence outside of him, 
are incalculably numerous ; and it would be unrea- 
sonable to think that all these external sources of 
influence should not affect the person's mind much 
more than his temperament affects it. Thirdly, be- 
cause people are generally in more danger from 
temptation than from temperament. Fourthly, and 
finally, because, so far as our power to oppose and 
neutralize the effect of circumstances external to 
the body is an affirmative argument, it is counter- 
balanced by our power to oppose and neutralize the 
effect of temperament. 

VII. 

COURAGE. 

Aspiration is never genuine, when it coexists with 
cowardice. But what is cowardice? ''It is," you 
may be ready to say, ''the opposite of courage." 
But what is courage ? To him who is longing for 
more life and for eminence, it is important to know 
the true answer to this question. Let us seek this 
answer. 

We distinguish between the right and the wrong. 
ISTo man who is capable of thought, is incapable of 
this discrimination. You cannot point to the pagan, 
how remote soever his day, who, if he could reason 
at all, could not reason to the difference between 
right principles and wrong ones. 

What we call taste, is the judgment exercised in 
respect to beauty and deformity. What we call 



Courage. 319 

reason, is the judgment exercised in respect to 
truth and error. "What we call conscience, is the 
judgment exercised in respect to the right and 
the wrong. 

Every man must have his own taste and his own 
reason. It is not less obvious, that every man must 
have his own conscience. You may cultivate your 
taste, your reason, your conscience. The culture 
may be endless. The Arab, the Hottentot, the 
Shillook negro, every heathen, and every Christian, 
has a conscience which is according to his educa- 
tion. What is a sin for one man, may not be so 
great a sin for another man. He who has only the 
light of nature, must be presumed to judge differ- 
ently concerning the right and the wrong, from him 
who has the light of the Bible. He who believes 
that the jSTew Testament teaches baptism by immer- 
sion only, should not deem him a sinner who be- 
lieves that it sanctions three modes of baptism. 
Each one of us owes it to the right, to educate his 
conscience, and to educate it continually. 

Consider, now, the relation of the right and the 
wrong to courage. A good conscience ennobles the 
soul ; a bad conscience debases it. These two truths 
have been well known by men, from the earliest 
days of the race. Those great pagan philosophers, 
Socrates and Plato, knew^ them. Plato taught, that 
the chief attribute of right is courage, and that the 
chief attribute of wrong is cowardice. Look at 
your own experience, and you will find that Plato 
agrees with you. Do we not all know how con- 
science unmans the wrong-doer, and causes him to 
cower and skulk? ^' Thus conscience," says Shak- 



320 A Man. 

speare, ^' makes cowards of us all." "We may be 
brave animals, if we are vicious ; but we cannot be 
brave men, unless we are virtuous. We read that, 
on the proto-murderer, Cain, there was set a mark 
which, in all his life, he was not to lose. Was not 
that mark the cowardice which, so long as he lived, 
showed itself in his face, his words, and his actions ? 

He who has no inviolable virtue, trembles oftener 
than he knows. He cannot forget himself, and be 
brave. His life is dearer to him than any principle. 
He is scrupulously careful of his blood. He is an 
unconquerable defender of his country — in private 
conversation ! He would be an intrepid man in the 
field — after the battle ! In all emergences, he 
clings to himself, with a cowardly cohesiveness. I 
hope you do not know how such a man starts at the 
first shock of danger ; and how pale and shivering 
he is, till some happy chance has again placed him 
in the lap of security. Almost all his escapes from 
peril are hair-breadth escapes. Let him know that 
his blood is in jeopardy, and he will shrink like a 
turtle, and will allow the emissaries of accident to 
trample on his back. Hence, if, in the hour of 
mortal disaster, he is delivered, the deliverance 
cannot but seem to him, in every instance, either a 
marvel or a miracle. 

This man never exhibits one true sign of intre- 
pidity. While other men are fighting with the 
flames of burning buildings, he is hasting from point 
to point, and is panting from his vigorous exertion 
— to see the fire ! He never exposes himself so 
much, for his neighbor's sake, as to have his hands 
lacerated and his brow blackened. He suggests to 



Courage. 321 

• 
others how to rescue hazarded lives ; but never is 

he the hero who dives after a drowning boy, or im- 
perils himself to save an endangered woman. In a 
storm, at sea, you can conjecture how many deaths 
this man would die. 

'^Cowards die many times before their deaths; 
The valiant never taste of death but once/' 

I have heard, from those who had conversed with 
persons picked up from the water where a vessel 
had foundered or had burned, that some persons 
would savagely tear from others their life-preservers, 
and fasten them on themselves. Would you, in a 
similar case, be willing to save your life by such an 
act of inhuman selfishness ? Unless you have a love 
of the right, so strong that you would sooner die 
than buy relief from danger like a coward, the 
answer is. Yes ! I have, also, been told that, among 
the passengers, floating near the spot where the 
wheels of a certain doomed vessel had discontinued 
their revolutions, was one man who had become weary 
swimming for his life. He approached a fragment, 
to which a boy was clinging. He could easily have 
made it his own ; but the youth piteously said to 
him, " Don't tear me away ! " The exhausted swim- 
mer answered, " "Well, I will not ! " and turned aside. 
Perhaps, not long afterward, a few bubbles from the 
sullen depths were coming up to break over the 
grave of one who was unwilling to save his life by 
an act of cowardly cruelty. Do you consider that 
person a true hero ? Do you think he exhibited 
great self-denial, admirable philanthropy, and un- 
bending integrity ? You think truly. But was he 

V 



322 A Man. 

more heroic than you, in a similar case, should show 
yourself to be ? I say, 'No I Man was made to be 
always courageous and magnanimous. You are 
not a man, if you could not die like a man ! 

But let us study, still more carefully than we have 
yet done, the relation of the right and the wrong 
to character. 

There are two kinds of feeling which cheapen a 
person in his own estimation. One is simply cha- 
grin. It rises in us in consequence of our unin- 
tended blunders. We ridicule ourselves. We look 
within, and say, " Thou fool ! " 

It sometimes happens that a person is suddenly 
made to see the imperfections and the faults of his 
intellectual character. Some experienced and wise 
master, it may be, causes him to start, in view of 
the number of his defects, somewhat as Elisha's 
young servant did when he beheld the horses and 
the chariots of fire. 

It would be well, should each one of us be led, 
more frequently, to consider his own ignorance and 
weaknesses. We usually observe the faults of other 
people far sooner than we do our own. 

Chagrin subserves an important end in the work 
of education. It nearly always reacts in intellec- 
tual improvement. As it is a feeling of disgust in 
us, in view of our own faults or our own mistakes, 
it cannot but tend to turn us into self-correctors 
and self-reformers. 

The other species of reproving feeling, by which 
a man is cheapened in his own view, is that which 
rises from the consciousness of wrong. This, as we 
all know, rarely results in personal amendment. 
All sin has respect to principles and beings which 



Courage. 323 

are invisible. We get only men against us by our 
blunders ; we get God against us by our sins. 
"Wicked acts are always willfully performed. We 
never blunder for the pleasure of blundering ; but, 
in every instance of evil action, we sin for the plea- 
sure of sinning. The revolts of taste and of reason 
never fail to make us intellectually better ; but the 
revolts of conscience do not often serve to make us 
morally better. If we should always act, in respect 
to the right and the wrong, according to the dictates 
of judgment, rather than according to the dictates 
of propensity or of passion, our very self-reproach 
would make us upright, just as the feeling of cha- 
grin makes us less faulty. But conscientious action 
requires a ceaseless subjection of propensity and 
passion to judgment ; and, hence, the bad heart finds 
it more easy to be wrong than to be right, by as 
much as it is more easy to go downward than to go 
upward. It is usually the case, that he who is cor- 
rupt, is tending to become more corrupt. And every 
such man, whenever he contemplates his character, 
must needs feel that there is something in it with 
which God and all the pure creatures in the universe 
cannot sympathize, and which they cannot regard 
with the least degree of allowance. This feeling 
produces cowardice. We readily see that all evil 
ought to be doomed; that nothing which is op- 
posed to the right, ought forever to prosper. In all 
our contests in this life, the voice of judgment 
cries within us, telling us either to give up or to 
fight on. A few conscientious men are always more 
than a match for a larger number of wicked men 
arrayed against them. You cannot point to one 



324 A Man. 

man, m history, who willingly became a martyr for 
a principle wMcli lie knew to be wrong. 

Men learn to make a distinction between cha- 
racter and reputation. They observe, that the for- 
mer is what a man intrinsically is ; while the latter 
is what a man is in the view of other men. A per- 
son may be reputed heroic, and, at the same time, 
may possess a character which constitutes him a 
coward. You do not say, that, as a person talks, as 
he acts, or as he appears, so is he. Judas kissed 
Jesus, as if he loved him ; but you know what it 
was in Judas that made his kiss infinitely worse 
than a blow would have been. As a man thinketh 
in his heart, so is he. A man's character is that which 
he really is. Find out a stranger's heart-thoughts, 
and you need not fear him ; for, if he is good, he 
will not harm you ; and, if he is bad, you will not 
put yourself in his power. He that is pure in heart 
will think purely on the lowest themes. Thoughts 
of evil may not be evil thoughts. Nothing that is 
merely intellectual is base. It is the baptism of cor- 
rupt feeling that defiles thought. There can be no 
wrong purpose in a man with which his heart is not 
concerned. The character of the Pharisee, in the 
parable, who said, in his prayer, ''I thank thee that 
I am not as other men," was not so much according 
to his views, as according to his cherished views. 
Two generals, the one animated by a selfish ambi- 
tion, the other by an unselfish ambition, may be 
equally sagacious in tactics, and equally successful 
in the field; but humanity will hold the name of 
Napoleon less dear than the name of Washington, 
by as much as the lust for power is less noble than 



Courage. 32 5; 

the love of country. The great man may be sure 
of notoriety if he is bad; but he cannot be sure of 
fame \inless he is good. Corrupt as the masses may 
be, you will find that they rarely celebrate the birth- 
day or any triumph of a powerful man, who was 
known to possess a brilliant reputation but a base 
character. How sublime an object of admiration 
is he who has become illustrious by thinking 
mightily in a virtuous heart ! 

"We all consider men of power and fame in their 
relation to God. We know that reputation, though 
it should fill the whole world, would be nothing to 
God in comparison with character. He is no re- 
specter of persons. He is a respecter only of cha- 
racters. He honors men according to their heart- 
thoughts, not according to the measure of their 
popularity. We all know this. We are so consti- 
tuted that we cannot but know it. And, therefore, 
whenever we see a poor man, with no reputation, 
or with a very unfortunate one, struggling along in 
life, and, all of the time, showing to those who best 
know him, that he is perfectly honest and virtuous, 
we say, '' This poor man means well ; let us help 
him along ! " All mankind agree with God in some 
things. Are we not disposed to tolerate even super- 
stitious fanatics, if we find their moral fidelity to be 
so great that they would sufter martyrdom for the 
sake of a right principle ? Ignorance, awkwardness, 
noisy enthusiasm, are not pleasing. They insure 
to no man a fortunate reputation. But, is it not 
true that, even in despite of these disagreeable 
things, he whose character is known to be good, 
and always good, usually receives good treatment 
28 



326 A Man. 

and gets a good living? Do not wicked shop- 
keepers and bankers always try to hire for clerks 
men who think honestly in their hearts as well as 
clearly in their heads ? Do they not say to them- 
selves : '' Can I trnst this man out of my sight ? Is 
he unbending in integrity ? Would he ever handle 
my cash with embezzling fingers ? Is he selfish ? 
Is he profane ? Is he, in any respect, really vicious ? 
Is he all that he seems to be ? " In some instances, 
how great soever may be the employer's sagacity, 
a bad heart, in a well-dressed form, gets behind a 
store-counter, behind a bank-counter, in a railroad 
ofiB.ce, or in some other and higher position of re- 
sponsibility and trust; and what is the result? The 
possessor of that heart does not long retain his po- 
sition. For, though reputation and character are 
two things, and you cannot always justly infer the 
latter from the former, yet it is natural that a cor- 
rupt character should manifest itself. It has been 
supposed, that an evil man inevitably expresses his 
baseness in his look. This is, undoubtedly, an 
error. Shakspeare makes Hamlet say : 

<< Meet it is I set it down, 



That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain/^ 

Do not the most cunning deceivers usually have 
strong eyes and open countenances, as if they were 
the purest beings in the world? '^ Dishonesty,'' 
says Charles Dickens, ''will stare honesty out of 
countenance any day in the week, if there is any- 
thing to be got by it." But the bad man who would 
conceal his character is unwittingly a traitor to him- 
self. Not all the eyes that are on him are wanting 



Courage. 327 

in penetration. He must needs be more or less 
exposed to the scrutiny of those who are skilled in 
reading the most casual manifestations of disposi- 
tion. Hence, he that is a hero in the field, m^j not 
be a hero in the opinion of his most intimate ser- 
vant. We all sliow what w^e are to some persons. JSTo 
shrewd disguise for reputation's sake, or for posi- 
tion's sake, can long avail to a man as a complete 
concealment of what he really is. ''Beware," said 
Jesus, " of false prophets wdio come to you in sheep's 
clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. 
Ye shall know them by their fruits : do men gather 
grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles ? Even so, every 
good tree bringeth forth good fruit, but a corrupt 
tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot 
bring forth evil fruit, nor can a corrupt tree bring 
forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth 
good fruit, is hewn down and cast into the fire." 

Remember, then, that, as a man thinketh in his 
heart, so is he, in despite of his reputation. Learn 
to look within men for what they are. Do not con- 
found extrinsic with intrinsic worth. Let not the 
false deceive thee by flattery or the corrupt captivate 
thee by fair pretensions. ''Eat thou not," says the 
proverb, "the bread of him that hath an evil eye, 
nor desire thou his dainty meats ; for as he thinketh 
in his heart, so is he. Eat and drink, sayeth he to 
thee ; but his heart is not with thee." 

Remember, also, never to despise a poor man, so 
long as he is honest. Join not with those fickle 
children whose father is Selfishness, and whose mo- 
ther is Vanity, in forsaking or denouncing a person, 
before thou hast gone back of his reputation and 



328 A Man. 

studied his character. A person may seem to be 
corrupt, and yet may be right in heart. A person 
may be derided, scorned, hated, slandered, and yet 
maybe one of God's courageous little ones. '^Blessed 
are the pure in heart," said he who uttered the me- 
lodious beatitudes; ^^for they shall see God." Oh ! 
is it not well — is it not a sweet solace to thousands 
of our fellow-men, that there is one being in the 
universe, to the rays of whose genial love the mean- 
est dress and skin are no bar, so long as there are 
genuine virtue and courage back of them ? All the 
show which the richest of men can make, in this 
world, must be made, within far less than six score 
of years ; and when this brief life, with its vanities, 
and flatteries, and pageantries, and idolatries, and 
hero-worship, shall have come to its close, the great 
God will brush away from the man his gold, his 
laurels, and his faded body, as if these all were but 
cobwebs, and will say to him : '^ Man, let me see thy 
character ! " In such an hour, there may be a king, 
lying in purple robes, on a bed thronged with weep- 
ing courtiers ; there may be a leper to whom kindred 
have been cold, neighbors unkind, and strangers 
cruel; there maybe a poor man; there maybe a 
black man; but, in despite of all things external — • 
in despite of the purple, the plague-spots, the po- 
verty, or the complexion, the divine eye will pierce 
through to the soul, and will see the character, and 
only that ! 



Genius. 329 



PAPER II. 

GENIUS. 

It is a momentous question, "What results would 
be likel}^ to follow, were a few great minds, now in 
the world, and engaged in speculations of their own, 
suddenly to become incapable of action ? Do not 
say it is the people that produce the greatness of our 
nation, or of any other nation. Are you not a be- 
liever in genius ? Can you doubt, that a few earnest 
persons have, in every age, been found apart from 
the many, steadily at work, ransacking nature for 
new laws and new forces ? 

The people do not keep the wheels of civilization 
going. They did not discover that this world turns 
once a day, on its axis. They did not frame the 
American Constitution. They did not build London 
and Paris, Boston and ITew York. They did not 
invent the steam-engine, the rail-road, the elec- 
tro-magnetic telegraph. The people were not the 
first to say. Come ! let us make a Crystal Palace ! 
Come ! let us construct a steam-ship, six hundred 
and eighty feet in length ! Come ! let us stretch a 
cable across the bottom of the Atlantic ocean ! 

When you say, that we the people of the United 

States are great and mighty, what more do you 

mean, than that there have been, and still are, in 

our nation, certain men of genius, who have driven, 

28* 



330 A Man. 

and are still driving, an uncommon work, in such 
places as studies, offices of state, laboratories, and 
garrets ? It is a small thing to fire a cannon. We the 
people can easily do that. But, if gunpowder or 
field-pieces were yet to be invented, we the people 
would have to wait for some genius to get up in the 
morning and do it. 

It was not an association of men, but one man — 
Richard Arkwright, the inventor of the spinning- 
frame, that, as Mr. Carlyle says, ^'had to give Eng- 
land the power of cotton." So, w^e may say, that 
one person had to give America the power of the 
lightning-rod, and another person had to give her 
the power of the reaper. 



GOVERNMENT. 

The highest sovereignty over men, excepting the 
divine sovereignty, lies in genius. The genius 
in statesmanship and heroic action, is the ruler. 
The genius in discovery and invention is the asso- 
ciate ruler. '' ISTapoleon," says William Ellery Chan- 
ning, ^^must divide w^ith Fabbroni the glory of the 
road over the Simplon." Kings are but pupils and 
followers, unless, like the same ITapoleon, or like 
William, Prince of Orange — the hero of Macaulay's 
third and fourth volumes — thej^ have a power and an 
originality of their own, by which they are able to 
pass from the Old to the N^ew, in magnificent steps. 

We oft^n hear it said, that, in America, the peo- 
ple have the sovereign power ; or, in other words, 
that, in our country, the majority, not the minority, 



Government. 331 

rule. This, in one sense, is true, and is well. In 
another sense, it is not true ; and, in a third sense, 
it is too true. Have you ever considered what sort 
of thing a purely popular sovereignty would be ? 
Strong hints are sometimes given us, from which 
we may form a conception of the character of such 
a sovereignty. Hints of this kind are presented in 
all those extraordinary emergences, by which the 
people are put, for a time, on their own resources. 
In every nation, such emergences frequently occur. 
They are occasions on which the usual restraints 
imposed on the masses by certain intelligent and 
guiding persons, are almost completely thrown oif. 
The many are, for a while, without the few. And 
what is the result ? There are scenes of wild con- 
fusion and disorder. The people seem to have be- 
come mad. They show a sad want of judgment and 
of firmness. They blindly rush into dangerous paths 
of error, give unbounded credence to the most vision- 
ary theories, and pant and clamor in honor of in- 
fatuated fanaticism, 

*' Like Ocean into tempest wrought, 
To waft a feather or to drown a fly/' 

Small, and in many instances, insignificant causes, 
sufl3.ce to introduce such seasons of temporary anar- 
chy. "Who can tell how soon the masses in America 
will rise and rush, urged up and on, by a contagious 
passion for some curiously novel illusion ? Many a 
majority has paid dearly for its Avhistle. ^ot much is 
required to put the greater part of the multitude out 
of their heads, and make the profamim vulgus terribly 
profane. Great is the effort at restraint which must 



332 A Man. 

needs be made by the few, on some of our days of 
public festivity, to keep the people from corrupting 
themselves. Consider the freaks and the broils of 
the crowds that throng in our cities, on the occa- 
sions of party scrambles and of elections. All popu- 
lar excitements, too sudden in their rise to admit of 
immediate suppression, and all instances of unre- 
strained hero-worship, serve to show us what w^ould 
become of the majority without the minority, the 
many without the few. 

The people of every nation are always more or 
less liable to exhibit a fickleness like that which the 
French exhibited in the days of Napoleon the First. 
Tou have, undoubtedly, read, in how short a period 
of time, the masses of Paris passed through all the 
degrees of feeling, from utter aversion to enthusiastic 
favor, as the falcon-eyed Corsican made his way from 
Elba, the seat of his exile, to the capital of France. 
As if by some mysterious metamorphosis, he was, 
one day, a hideous monster, at whom the masses of 
the city were ready to gnash their teeth in scornful 
defiance ; and, on the next, he was once more a 
beautiful emperor, at whose feet those very masses 
were ready to bow, in sycophantic idolatry. The 
history of every nation contains instances similar to 
this one — all which are indicative of the state of 
things which would result from a complete resigna- 
tion of sovereignty to the people. 

Thus, by supposing it to be for a time suspended, 
are we able to form some just estimate of the ability 
of that limited number of men who keep the nations 
from dissoluteness and ruin. '^ Remember, sir," said 



Government. 333 

Mr. Emerson to Kossuth, 'Hhat everything great 
and excellent in the world is in minorities." 

Men are apt to lose sight of the fact, that there is 
a far-seeing aristocracy of merit, ever planning, pro- 
ducing, and conserving, for the welfare of humanity. 
But for the influence of this intelligent and able few, 
there could be no general progress of mankind. 
Take this from the nations, and they would soon be 
found groping in the gloom of degeneracy. It was 
when Moses delayed to come down from the top of 
Sinai, that the people set up the golden calf. It was 
when Solon departed for a visit to the neighboring 
nations, that the prosperity of Athens began to w^ane. 
It was when Lycurgus went into voluntary exile, 
erroneously thinking that Sparta could easily spare 
him, that the Lacedemonians began to decline. So 
long as these powerful lawgivers and guides were at 
tbeir posts, dispensing counsel and exercising con- 
trol, the people were prosperous and progressive. 
Moses, among the Jews, was sufficient to prevent 
them from corrupting themselves by the worship of 
idols. The Areopagus was a senate of Solons, and 
every brave Athenian knew his place and kept it, 
so long as the distinguished pagan democrat was 
present in Athens. Freedom, peace, good order, 
the fine arts, personal and public religion — in short, 
whatever things tended to make government strong 
and society happy, were, then, justly valued by the 
people. So, in Sparta, the presence of Lycurgus 
proved the truth of his favorite maxim, that '' a city 
is well fortified, if it has a wall of men instead of a 
wall of bricks." His voice was sufficient to main- 
tain the currency of iron-specie ; and, so long as he 



334 A Man. 

was near to sanction it, a yoke of oxen drawing an 
amount of coin equal in value to but ten minae, 
was no scene for popular ridicule. 

Do you see, now, that it is not tlie many but tbe 
few, by whom tlie nations are shaped ? Genius is 
tlie chief power in government, in civilization. By 
this, every human good is provided and conserved, 
l^othing is valuable — no book, invention, custom, 
law, or institution — but as an intelligent minority 
will and make it so to be. It was not the many, but 
the few, that rescued the American colonies from 
the English yoke. It was not the many, but the 
few, that gathered and preserved the classic manu- 
scripts, and that first aifirmed the value of ''The 
Paradise Lost," and of '' The Pilgrim's Progress." 
It is not the many, but the few, that are related to 
have first seen the sacred significance of the Star 
of Bethlehem. It has not been the many, but the 
few, that have kept our Bible from neglect, and 
have defended it against misrepresentation, in a 
world of unbelief and imposture, of treachery and 
violence. 

n. 

CUSTOM. 

Q-reat is the dependence of the many on the few, 
the indebtedness of the people to genius. As a 
specific illustration of this statement, consider how 
fluctuating and uncertain would be the estimate 
placed on all established customs, if these were left 
to popular dictation and caprice. You cannot say 
how long the present conventionalities of social in- 
tercourse — the forms of salutation, the modes of 



Custom. 335 

showing regard and reverence, the rules of pro- 
priety and decency, and all those refined usages, 
which tend to restrain men from insolent boldness 
and from open vice — would survive a total surren- 
der of sovereignty to the people. The mass of man- 
kind originate nothing. They only use and enjoy 
what the great minds of the race have provided for 
them. They exercise little of that protective care, 
by which good customs are preserved from untimely 
desuetude. 

We may judge, from the singular fickleness of 
the votaries of fashion, how liable to discontinuance 
every custom would be, if left to the will of the 
people. Observe how, like the fancies of a dream, 
the short-lived progeny of arbitrary innovation, 
seem ever fluttering into the world, and then out 
of it. But this mutability is the consequence of a 
renouncement, by genius, of all control over style 
in dress, and over the etiquette of parlors. The 
fashions which pass away are governed, principally, 
by aristocratic classes, that are distinguished more 
for show than for intellectual force. They seek 
change of style, as a gratification of vanity. From 
their ever-prurient desire of novelty, the very con- 
tinuities of tradition are in danger. Genius has 
many hard tasks to perform in opposition to their 
influence. "What are periodic commemorations and 
national annals, but means employed by the guides 
of mankind, to insure memorable events and worthy 
names against the popular tendency to indiscrimi- 
nate forgetfulness ? jSTot long would the people, if 
deprived of the restraining and regulating power of 
genius, celebrate the great days of history. Christ- 



336 A Man. 

mas and the Lord's Supper might, at length, be 
disregarded. As in France, during the Reign of 
Terror, it might become unpopular to keep the 
seventh day holy. The observance of days of fast- 
ing and of thanksgiving, might become a matter of 
ridicule ; and it might come to seem absurd, in the 
view of the States of our Republic, to commemorate 
the landing of the Pilgrims, the birth-day of Wash- 
ington, or the Fourth of July. 

III. 

IMPROVEMENT. 

But there is, obviously, a higher view to be taken 
of genius, than that in which it is considered only 
in the light of its utility. It is to be viewed as 
giving expression and form, in books, in the fine 
arts, and in various happy improvements, to ideals 
of surpassing rarity. 

Genius imbodies that which is exquisitely beau- 
tiful in thought. It arrests us by bright and curious 
surprises. It makes mute things vocal, dead things 
living, old things new. But for genius, even nature 
might seem monotonous. The tree would be far 
less charming to you, had you never learned from 
genius, that there is going on, in its trunk, its 
branches, and its leaves, a wonderful circulation of 
sap. We respect the drop of water, since genius 
has taught us, that hydrogen, oxygen, and electricity 
live in it. By the same master, we have been 
schooled to tread thoughtfully on the rough and 
unsightly rocks ; for genius has shown us how to 
read, in fossilized vegetable and animal forms, and 



Improvement. 337 

in the litliologic character of the strata^ descriptions 
of the world's ante-alluvial surface. 

Look round you, and see how many objects which 
you admire or which you hold dear, have been made 
admirable or lovely by the influence of genius. You 
are more interested in the statue than in the living 
form, in the painting than in the real scene, because 
you think of those works as having once employed 
the thoughts of gifted human minds. Men cling, 
with a reverential speechlessness and tenacity, even 
to the bits of manuscript left by the illustrious dead. 
"What is there that the touch of genius can not 
ennoble ? The misfortune of the great man tends 
to make him more mysteriously beautiful. Homer 
and Milton are more interesting to us, because they 
were blind ; and Socrates left greater power in his 
name, because he was made to die from a draught 
of hemlock. 

Genius gives attractiveness to common things. 
It is a reformer of that in art, in science, or in 
nature, which has lost either its use or its beauty. 
There are a hundred mines of truth, which would, 
long ago, have been forsaken, had not genius proved 
their richness, and shown how they might be better 
worked. Philosophy received from Bacon a new 
impulse and a new charm. History was chaotic, 
till Herodotus wrote ; and the drama became famous 
in the days of Shakspeare. Howard's " circumnavi- 
gation of charity" caused philanthropy to seem a 
nobler virtue. Florence Nightingale, by her pre- 
sence and influence, gave renown to the hospitals 
of Scutari, and made the heroism of the six hun- 
dred, at Balaklava, look mean in comparison with 
29 w 



338 A Man. 

the amiable courage whicli she exhibited. The 
example of Aristides the Just, made it almost 
fashionable to be honest. By the power of his 
genius, the comparative anatomist, Cuvier, ascer- 
tained, from petrified bones, the forms of extinct 
animal species ; and ever since Harvey discovered 
to us the laws of the blood, the old beat of the heart 
has commanded respect ! 

Itwas the boast of Themistocles, that ''he could not 
fiddle, but he could turn a little village into a great 
city." Augustus Csesar, on his death-bed, claimed, 
''that he found Rome a city of brick, but left it a 
city of marble." The man of genius improves 
everything on which he concentrates the energy of 
his mind. He makes dull objects charming. He 
goes down among the rocks and the fossils of the 
earth's crust, and comes back, bringing in his mind 
and hands the materials out of which a system of 
geology is formed. He christens the signs of the 
zodiac, and the balance, the scorpion, and the crab- 
fish, at once become names of empyrean dignity. 
He shows men that there is something admirable 
in the glow-worm as well as in the star, in the 
honey-comb as well as in the palace. He developes 
the power and the excellence which God left in the 
dust after making man out of it. 

IV. 

PERSONALITY. 

Genius indicates itself in a remarkable independ- 
ence and an inimitable potency. It insures to a 
man strong and impressive personality. The world 



Personality. 339 

over, it is said that men of genius are eccentric. 
But you should not be surprised to find a remarkable 
difiference existing between him whose mind is a 
producer, and him whose mind is only a consumer. 
If you should gather, on one side of you, all the 
geniuses of the race, and, on the other side, all those 
thousands of individuals who exhibit no marked 
signs of personality, you ought to know that you 
w^ould then have, on one hand, a collection of men, 
each one of whom would be peculiar and anomalous, 
while, on the other hand, you would have only an 
uncounted flock of human sheep. 

Viewed as active members of society, men may 
be divided into two orders. There are derived men, 
and there are men of personality. Of the first order, 
a single individual may be taken as a representative 
of the whole ; but, of the other order, each indi- 
vidual represents chiefly himself. These two orders 
of men have contemporaneously figured in every 
era of civilization. 

By a derived man, is meant a man who has no 
firm personality. He is, in a true sense, not a man, 
but merely an imitation of one. He is more a 
manikin than a man. His character, in all its es- 
sential traits, is the result of innumerable copyings. 
It is induced "rather than educed. His thoughts are 
other men's thoughts. His own dw^arfed mind 
never feels the birth of an original idea. He is 
content with superficial views. His opinions take 
their whim from the images made on the retina of 
his eye, or from the vibrations communicated to the 
tj^mpanum of his ear. He is an enthusiastic rever- 
encer of the past; and, to his view, distance lends 



340 A Man. 

a powerful enchantment. He has much to say about 
Switzerland, and Germany, and Italy, and Greece ; 
and, in his absurd veneration of the antique and the 
distant, he fancies that a man, on this side of the 
Atlantic, cannot become truly great till he shall 
have beheld the walls of the Colosseum of Rome, 
inhaled the breath of ISTaples Bay, or snuifed melon 
perfumes along the Nile. 

He is, also, a bookish man. He could name to 
you his chosen authors by the thousand or more. 
His library is large. He is a reader. But, on in- 
quiry, you would find his list of favorite books to 
consist, mainly, of such as impose the lightest tax 
on the intellect. Most of the profound books he 
reads, are served by him very much as, according 
to Dean Swift, some men in England used to serve 
lords — that is, he learns their titles^ and then brags 
of their acquaintance. 

As a writer, he has no settled style of his own, 
blots but little, and is, undoubtedly, very grateful 
for the quotation privilege. He writes on paper 
what he has, in different words, previously perused 
or heard. He tires you with a long, drizzling rain 
of rhetoric, not relieved by a single flash of thrilling 
lightning or a single peal of stirring thunder. His 
works are soon forgotten. 

He speaks affectedly, and with little genuine 
force. You become weary under his elocution, as 
under the tedious monotony of revolving machine- 
wheels. His forced gestures and unengaged eyes 
soon convince you that he is only a polished mimic ; 
and you retire from him with a feeling of disap- 
pointment or of disgust. 



Personality. 341 

In action, he is equally formal and inefficient. 
He is a human automaton — a ceremony on feet. 
His manners smack of the etiquette of parlors, as 
much as certain preserves do of sugar and lemon. 
He is a fashionable man. He dresses according to 
the fashion, studies according to the fashion, thinks 
according to the fashion, eats according to the 
fashion, entertains you according to the fashion. 
He is a man of fashion, from the quality of a thought 
to the cut of a finger-nail. Such is the derived man. 
Let us now consider some of the traits of the man 
of personality. 

This man possesses an indomitable self, on which 
he relies, whatever be the occasion. .This self is 
his genius. By this, he is nerved and sustained, 
made defiant of opposition, indefatigable in pursuit, 
and heroic in the hour of conflict. Self-develop- 
ment is his education. His thoughts are fresh and 
great. As a writer, he is powerful. He expresses, 
on paper, something of his own. His style, his 
beliefs, his ideals of beauty and of utility, are there. 
He despises the servility of the plagiary. His books 
go down to posterity over the ruins of libraries of 
tinsel tomes. One word of his can chase a thousand, 
and two put ten thousand to flight ! 

To commune and to wrestle with nature are his 
daily delight. He is no blusterer, no fanatic. He 
begins his tasks with serenity and stillness, but with 
steadfast hope and persevering courage. Other men 
become faint and disheartened before obstacles ; but 
this man, in despite of all obstacles, accomplishes 
his object. Other men joined hands with Luther; 
but Luther, only, was equal to the demands of the 
29* 



34^ - A Man. 

Protestant Reformation. Other men suffered with, 
the English Puritans ; but they only possessed the 
heroism which achieves deliverance from oppression. 

The inventor, the discoverer, the master — these 
are men of personality. Such men communicate 
something of themselves to all that are under their 
influence. Their words have an unusual sound. 
They set their plain sentences on fire with flashes 
of that lightning which lives in their eyes. They 
are impressively simple, and commandingly unfash- 
ionable. Their thoughts, their opinions, their feel- 
ings, and their beliefs, pass into the minds of other 
men. Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Epi- 
curus, each gathered round him a sect, every mem- 
ber of which thought his thoughts, adopted his 
opinions, felt his feelings, believed his beliefs. 
!N"apoleon the First made his generals Napoleonic ; 
and Washington, in the Revolution, drew round 
him a Washingtonian soldiery. 

They who become famous are men of personality. 
Such men stand out from the race like those grand 
old mountains of the world, whose tops have never 
been striated and scoured by drift-agency. 

To the man of personality, death is never a dis- 
continuance of influence. Though ill-appreciated 
in his own generation, yet his name and his works 
will surely, as Lord Bacon said of his own, be 
honored '^ after some time be passed over." The 
sweep of revolution will only leave his reputation 
brighter. Not many men have studied the plays of 
Shakspeare ; but who does not feel the force of 
Shakspeare's personality ? 

In the first half of the seventeenth century, there 



Personality. 343 

lived two Englishmen, born eight years apart — 
"William Prynne and John Milton. Both these 
men were graduates from college, and had access 
to the highest learning and refinement of their time. 
But they differed in intellectual power. Milton 
was a man of impressive personality ; Prynne was 
a bookworm. In accordance with this difference, 
the former became great and famous ; while the 
latter lived absurdly, and died only to be remem- 
bered with commiseration. In a work entitled 
^'Calamities of Authors," you will find the name 
of Prynne honored — if honor it be — with a brief 
essay, under the title of ^'A Voluminous Author 
without Judgment." He published more than two 
hundred works. His chief production was a quarto, 
of eleven hundred pages, entitled " Histriomastix" 
— a book which was seven years under the scrib- 
bler's hand, and four years in press. Lord Cotting- 
ton, amazed at this paragon of voluminosity, was 
provoked to exclaim, that '^Pryime could not have 
written the work alone ; he either assisted the devil, 
or was assisted by him." And a wit of that day, 
affected with a similar feeling of disgust, in view of 
Prynne's habits of application and research, without 
any manifestation of true genius, said of him, that 
''Nature makes ever the dullest beasts most la- 
borious and the greatest feeders." Such was the 
career of a learned man who was wanting in im- 
pressive personality. Or, using the language of 
him who has contributed to rescue Prynne's abor- 
tive life from utter oblivion, I may say: "Such is 
the history of a voluminous author, whose genius 
was such, that he could wj'ite a folio much easier 



344 A Man. 

than a page, and who seldom dined that he might 
quote squadrons of authorities." 

There is in genius, a love of solitude, which can- 
not but make it eccentric. It would be well should 
we all frequently make this solitary worker for 
mankind a visit. I will answer for it, reader, that 
there are tremendous realities in the work-places 
and the life of genius. The people of the surface- 
world move on, day by day, in their butterfly- 
chases, indifferent to the extent of their dependence 
on certain still and secluded men of personality. 
If a plague or something else should sweep off all 
the geniuses, what a longing and what an outcry 
there would soon be for unfashionable heroes of 
thought, to manage the machinery of progress ! 

The habitual simplicity of genius is a characteristic 
which dooms it to be more or less neglected by so- 
ciety. Men of personality can understand people 
of fashion ; but these cannot always understand 
those. To persons of superficial minds, simplicity 
is far less significant than complexity. Genius has 
ever its own modes of expression. The fashionable 
classes consider these modes undignified. They do 
not observe, that those objects which have the most 
specific gravity are the least disposed to behave like 
a floating cork. 

It is from the great difference between the man 
of personality and the derived man, that the people 
seldom consider the irrepressible yearnings, the 
mighty grapplings, the persevering courage, and the 
untold raptures of great thinkers. When it has be- 
come the fashion to give honor to genius, then, and 
then only, is genius the people's favorite. I see, 



Personality. 345 

now, why so many of tlie sages of old were, for 
years, unpopular. I see why Aristides the Just was 
banished by the Ostracism ; why Socrates was mar- 
tyred, and Galileo was thrown into prison ; and why 
the copy-right of Milton's Paradise Lost brought 
him but five pounds. I see why it w^as, that, when 
Poggio Bracciolini collected the scattered manu- 
scripts of Quintilian, Plautus, and Columella, ''he 
did not," as he himself said, " find them in libraries 
which their dignity demanded ; but in a dark and 
obscure dungeon, at the bottom of a tower, where 
they were leading the life of the damned." It has 
been said, that the eye of a man of genius seems 
directed toward some object, far in the distance. It 
is ever so. Genius lives in the future, as well as in 
the present. Its own generation is unable to com- 
prehend the full meaning of its simple expressions 
and manners. Homer, with all his simplicity, was 
not understood by the men of his time. Plato had 
not many listeners ; and Jesus himself gained, be- 
fore his crucifixion, but few adherents. And who 
can tell how many a gifted mind lived, in the far- 
distant past, whose precious manuscripts, contain- 
ing, perhaps, the germs of a higher civilization than 
ours, went to dust, more than a thousand years ago, 
with the hands that wrought them, or were scattered 
to the winds by some one of the many revolutions 
which have, from time to time, swept over human 
afiairs ? 

" "Who tell what thoughts that might have stirred the zones. 
Have died unheard ?'' 

But there is more to be said concerning the per- 
sonality of the man of genius. Observe, that no 



346 A Man. 

two productive minds are ever, in the same respects, 
unique or eccentric. The geniuses differ, in intel- 
lect, as widely as various species of trees differ in 
fruit. The chestnut-tree cannot bear pine-apples. 
When a derived man apes the peculiarities of a man 
of personality, he appears as absurd as would a 
beech sapling with apples tied to its twigs. 

Observe, also, that not all eccentric men are men 
of strong and manly personality. Every idiot is 
eccentric. There was a notoriously eccentric indi- 
vidual whose surname was Patch. He was the comet 
of leapers. If the multitude has ever stood agape 
and breathless, to see what one man can do, it was 
when they beheld the feats of Mr. Patch. Most 
eccentrically did this man exhibit himself; and, in 
the last of his hazardous exploits, his eccentricity 
was so great, that it proved fatal, and left him with 
no more power to jump in this world. But do you 
say, that Mr. Patch, in consideration of his odd 
aptitude for leaping, was a man of genius? Then, 
so far as your influence goes, you dishonor that gift 
which made a Bacon of one man, and a Newton of 
another. 

I do not deny that Diogenes possessed genius ; 
but I deny that it was on account of anything noble 
in him that he was led to wipe his dirty feet on 
Plato's carpet, and to say, as he performed the in- 
decent act, "Thus trample I on Plato's pride." 
" With another kind of pride," retorted Plato ; and 
in those words, he suggested the true explanation 
of his guest's unmanly independence. I deny, also, 
that Diogenes was exhibiting sterling genius, when, 
as it is related, he ludicrously chose a capacious tub 



Personality. 347 

for liis house. A man may be foolishly anomalous ; 
but the gift of genius will not make him so. It can- 
not, however, be maintained, that the peculiarities 
of genius are always pleasing. In many instances, 
they are exceedingly disagreeable. 

The man of personality is eccentric, because his 
modes of thought, of expression, and of action, are 
his own. He has but few habits, in common with 
the derived man. Descartes, Montaigne, Buffon, 
Addison, are said to have been unfashionably taci- 
turn in mixed company. A friend of Marmontel 
once said of him, after an interview, "I must go 
and read his tales, to recompense myself for the 
weariness of hearing him." 

One would naturally suppose that Butler, the au- 
thor of the humorous satire of ^^Hudibras," was 
one of the liveliest of men. But, when the witty 
Charles 11. had, in a private talk, discovered the 
poet's dullness, he could hardly believe him the 
author of that amusing satire. Antisthenes, the 
ancient, was one day seen dragging a large dirty 
fish home from the market. The village people 
laughed at the philosopher; but he turned to them, 
and said, ''It is for myself that I carry this fish." 
It is related, that Thales, one of the seven Grecian 
sages, was so enchanted, one evening, by the beau- 
tiful scenery of the heavens, that he lost his path, 
and fell into a ditch. A Thracian lady who hap- 
pened to see him fioundering in the mud, exclaimed, 
''Ah ! served him right. He would read the skies, 
and yet does not know what is at his feet." The 
philosopher was, undoubtedly, far more patient in 
the mud, than that ladv Avould have been. 



348 A Man. 



REGULATION. 

Genius is not a faculty, not a passion, not an in- 
born taste. It is a gift of uncommon natural ability. 
It insures to the mind a remarkable quickness, re- 
ceptivity, and originality. Charles Lamb calls it 
" great wit.'' Dr. Johnson defines the true genius, 
as a mind of large general power accidentally de- 
termined in some particular direction. Macaulay 
represents genius as embracing those higher and 
rarer gifts, without which industry labors in vain to 
produce immortal eloquence or song. John Wesley 
pronounces genius an extraordinary capacity, either 
for some particular art or science, or for all. '' Some 
minds," says Thomas De Quincey, ^' stand nearer 
to the type of the original nature in man, are truer 
than others to the great magnet in our dark planet. 
Minds that are impassioned on a more colossal scale 
than ordinary, deeper in their vibrations, and more 
extensive in the scale of their vibrations, whether in 
other parts of their intellectual system they had or 
had not a corresponding compass, will tremble to 
greater depths from a fearful convulsion, and will 
come round by a larger curve of undulations." 

But, while genius, considered as a gift of uncom- 
mon natural ability, makes a person remarkable, and 
gives him a great capacity either for action, for enjoy- 
ment or for suffering, it may be, and should be, com- 
pletely controlled by the will. No person was born 
to be a mathematician and nothing else. I deny 
that any person was born to be so much of a musi- 
cian as to deserve to be carried to Sing-Sing. ISTo- 
thing is more true than that genius is susceptible 



Regulation. 349 

of unlimited regulation. Indeed, its most salient 
peculiarities are, in many an instance, chiefly indi- 
cative of a lamentable default of regulation. Many 
great minds are deformed. Genius may be mono- 
polized by one faculty, or by two, or by three facul- 
ties of the mind. There are men of wonderful 
memory, but of weak judgment ; of great readiness 
in figures, but intolerably tedious in speech ; of un- 
conquerable courage in the field, but cowards in the 
great war betw^een desire and moral principle. 
Alexander the Great was not so great, ofi* his 
horse. He w^as, then, a man of so weak a mind, as 
to lay a wager of a thousand crowns — and try to 
win it himself — for him who could drink the largest 
quantity of wine. The conqueror of the world had 
to own himself outdone by Promachus, the fortu- 
nate drinker, whose stomach was strong enough for 
eighteen pints. Diogenes, having suffered his ge- 
nius to develop itself into a monstrous disposition 
of satiric crabbedness, was fitly called Diogenes the 
Cynic ; and, when he was dead, the cap of his tomb- 
stone was not inappropriately ornamented with the 
image of a dog. It was at the expense of unba- 
lancing his mind, that Socrates gave the reins to 
his zealous ambition to exterminate sophistry. If a 
man has a gift as a writer of fiction, and writes 
fiction all of the time, what can he become other 
than a monstrous fiction-writer ? The best poets 
are more than poets. The best preachers are more 
than preachers. There are too many men of genius 
whose characters are sadly disproportioned. When 
Antisthenes was informed how finely Ismenias had 
played on the flute, he repliedj '' Then he is good 
30 



350 A Man. 

for nothing else ; otherwise he would not have played 
so well." S05 may we say of Alexander the Great, 
and of every other military hero who, like him, was 
a great sportsman hunting men for game, that he 
was good for nothing else ; otherwise he had not 
managed armies so well. Let us be thankful that 
such monsters of heroism are less in repute in our 
age, than they were in ages previous. 

It is in view of the possibility of a judicious regu- 
lation of genius, that its possessor is to be considered 
highly responsible for the use which he makes of 
his gift. Men of personality should watch the ten- 
dencies of the people. They should seek to express 
and imbody noble ideals ; to found useful institu- 
tions ; to enact wholesome laws ; to guard good 
customs ; to make the voice of the people, as nearly 
as it can be, the voice of God ; and faithfully to warn 
the people against blind enthusiasm and the influ- 
ence of evil leaders. IsTot to be despised are the 
masses for sometimes corrupting themselves. Those 
gifted persons whom Providence designed to be the 
people's instructors and guides, are more or less 
accountable for popular errors and vices. The many 
may be culpable ; but the few will be more culpable. 
The Epicureans were blameworthy; but Epicurus 
was more so. Pontius Pilate was more guilty of 
the blood of Jesus than were the Jewish rabble. 
In the world of retributions, Mohammed will suffer 
for the duped believers in the Koran ; Voltaire and 
Paine for those whom they caused to become vicious 
infidels ; and the papal hierarchs for their misguided 
devotees. " On the day of resurrection, some faces 
shall become white and other faces shall become 
black." 



Pythagoras. 351 



PAPER III. 

THE DISCOVERER. 

I FIND, in history, three names, to each of which 
I yield as to a spell. They are the names of men 
who seem to have experienced an extraordinary 
measure of the most exquisite joy possible, in any 
situation, to the human soul. Men they were, of 
more power of mind than of muscle — which is as 
much as to say, that they lived less in the outer 
w^orld than in the inner. They were, however, not 
unpractical ; for they w^ere discoverers. 

From the contemplation of these men, it is unne- 
cessary to say, that there may be derived many in- 
spiring thoughts and many elevating lessons. 



PYTHAOORAS. 

Let us go back through the centuries, and trace 
something special, in the character and the career, 
of this famous ancient. Thus to do, is to study a 
man who was ever longing and toiling after the true 
and the beautiful, of the unexplored or of the ill- 
explored portions of creation. All the most noble 
triumphs of mind have been accomplished by men 
like Pythagoras of Samos. He was an uncommon 



352 A Man. 

person; and, among his works, are to be mentioned 
uncommon achievements. 

He was the founder of a philosophic school, called 
the Italian school. He was more than that. Being 
asked by king Leon of Phlius, what was his profes- 
sion, he sublimely answered, that he was a lover of 
wisdom — a philosophos^ not a sophos; for the Deity 
only he conceived worthy the title of sage. Consider 
this profession of Pythagoras. A better one was, 
perhaps, never made by man. If you perceive how 
much it comprehends, you will then be prepared, it 
may be, to hear almost any great thing which may 
be affirmed or suggested, in honor of that ancient 
philosopher, without thinking to pronounce it in- 
credible. 

Did he, at Crotona, form a unique society, con- 
sisting of six hundred serene seekers after discipline 
and knowledge ? Was his opinion on any subject 
of inquiry, regarded, by his disciples, as sufficient 
authority without any proof? Did a single castiga- 
tion, incidentally administered by him, to one of his 
pupils, before the assembled school, damp the ardor 
of the young man's ambition, and cause him to pine, 
for a time, in secret, and then die ? Did the pupils 
of Pythagoras, after the death of their master, pay 
him divine honors ? These things do not surprise 
me ; for I know that Pythagoras of Samos was an 
extraordinary man. 

History does not tell us all the discoveries which 
were made by this ancient philosopher. We are in- 
formed, that he had two classes of hearers, and that 
he inculcated two kinds of doctrines. His public 
teachings were given in practical discourses. To 



Pythagoras. 353 

those who heard only these, he delivered truth under 
the mask of images and symbols. But, to those who 
constituted his secret society, he communicated in- 
struction, without the use of such instruments. In 
order to become members of this society, it was ne- 
cessary for the hearers to pass through a series of 
severe disciplinary trials. They were long instructed. 
They were required to practice the greatest purity 
and simplicity, in respect to manners. A silence 
of from two to five years was imposed on them, 
called the Pythagorean Silence. "Whoever was terri- 
fied, in view of the appointed trials, was permitted 
to withdraw from the society; but, to every such 
person, a tombstone was erected, as if he were dead. 
Having been sufficiently instructed and disciplined, 
the learners were admitted to the immediate pre- 
sence of their master. They then received his doc- 
trines unveiled. They interrogated him, and pro- 
pounded objections. They were designated as 
Pythagoreans, When they had been suitably in- 
structed in geometry, they were instructed in respect 
to nature, to fundamental principles, and to the be- 
ing of God. Politics were not neglected. But the 
particular instructions which were communicated by 
Pythagoras in secret, are not known, and cannot be 
ascertained. Did these contain the germs of great 
theories which have been framed in modern times ? 
Did they embrace sublime truths, in respect to God 
and immortality ? There is no voice to answer these 
questions. 

But, whatever may have been the character of 
the private instructions of the ancient master, it 
is pleasing to think of him in his grave and com- 
30* X 



354 A Man. 

man ding exterior, his joyous elevation of mind, his 
simplicity, his temperance, his self-control. It is 
pleasing to imagine his face, as showing, in its pale- 
ness, not so much the want of health, as the supe- 
riority of his restless mind. It is also pleasing to 
contemplate him as abstaining habitually from ani- 
mal food, and welcoming, with a true relish, all 
vegetables — excepting beans ! How interesting to 
meditate on him, as a revered teacher, living among 
his pupils in perfect concord ; rising with them early 
in the morning to worship the outbursting sun ; then 
determining how the day was to be spent; afterward 
joining in a recitation of poetic verses, or in vocal 
music, in order that his own mind and the minds of 
his pupils might be suitably prepared for the sterner 
employments of the day ; engaging with them, then, 
in difficult studies ; pausing, after several hours, for a 
solitary walk in which the mind might indulge in 
happy contemplations ; then participating in cheer- 
ful conversation and in various gymnastic exercises ; 
afterward attending to public and domestic affairs, 
to bathing, and to the duties of religion ; and, finally, 
reviewing what had been done during the day. All 
these things it is pleasing to consider, in connection 
with the genius and the works of that mysterious 
man of history — Pythagoras. 

Although the ideals and the deductions of this 
thinker seem somewhat fanciful, yet he was, cer- 
tainly, the most practical explorer of nature, of all 
that lived in his own day. Did he carry too far his 
reasonings about numbers ? You will own that he 
discovered the five regular geometrical bodies, and 
that he originated the multiplication-table. Were 



Pythagoras. 355 

his speculations in regard to music, to some extent, 
absurd? You will not deny that he developed 
musical relations, known, even in our time, to be 
as true as they are beautiful. Did he teach the 
doctrine of the transmigration of souls ? You will 
concede that he unfolded new and noble views re- 
specting the origin, the relations, and the destiny 
of man. Did he hold certain astronomical opinions 
which, in our age, seem extremely inconsistent? 
You will grant that he was the first of the ancient 
G-reeks who clearly anticipated the system of Co- 
pernicus. For, wonderful as it may seem, he be- 
lieved that the sun is the center of the planetary 
worlds, and that everj^ star is a sun. He knew the 
causes of eclipses, and how to predict them. He 
knew that the earth is round ; that its surface is 
naturally divided into five zones ; that its equator 
is inclined to the ecliptic ; and that it turns daily 
on its axis, and revolves yearly round the sun. He 
had discovered reasons for suggesting that the 
milky- way gets its whiteness from the innumerable 
stars in it; and reasons for pronouncing Lucifer 
and Hesperus the same beautiful Venus, bearing, in 
the one case, her morning, and, in the other, her 
evening name. And that early astronomer, who, 
without a telescope, so wisely read ^^ the heavens of 
the Lord," thought he could perceive sufiicient 
evidence to justify him in concluding that the other 
planets are, like our own, inhabited by sentient and 
intelligent beings. 

Think how the discoverer, Pythagoras, must have 
enjoyed the light which filled his studious and con- 
templative soul ! Did he not experience much of 



356 A Man. 

that bliss whicli may be supposed to constitute the 
never-ending happiness of unfallen intelligences ? 
How splendid a stand-point, in the vast universe, 
must he have regarded this world ! Do you ask 
why, though numbered among a people given to 
sensual enjoyment, he devoted himself only to such 
pursuits as tended to subdue the inclinations of his 
grosser nature ? Do you inquire why he so ardently 
loved the quiet seat of scholastic severities ? Think 
of the mental vigor, the clearness, and the grasp ; 
think of the rapturous satisfactions which were 
secured at the expense of that subordination of the 
body to the soul, of that application of the intellec- 
tual powers to tasks of research, and of the habits 
of Pythagoras you will find an ample explanation. 
'^ That man of the old time knew well how to live," 
you will be prepared to say. And, with reverential 
docility, as if you were, to-day, an humble learner 
taking lessons of wisdom from his lips, you will 
receive and garner those sayings of the philosopher, 
the truth of which his own life, without doubt, 
admirably illustrated : "- Strength of mind rests on 
sobriety ; for this keeps the reason unclouded by 
passion." ^'Isro one is to be deemed free, who has 
not perfect self-command." ^^Intoxication is a 
temporary madness." '*^ The desire of the super- 
fluous is folly ; for it has no bounds." '' Silence is 
better than unmeaning words." '' It is cowardly to 
quit the post assigned us by God before he permits 
us." 

There may be much, and there may be little of 
reality in that fine theory, in regard to the heavenly 
spheres, which has given a special celebrity to the 



Pythagoras. 357 

name of Pythagoras. I refer to that conception of 
his, in which, as you will remember, the solar system 
is supposed to be arranged, with such relations to 
distance, number, and time, as to make it a vast 
instrument of many parts, giving forth, as it moves 
through the ether, tones of the most exquisite 
melody. Little of reality, or much of reality, I say, 
there may be in this conception of a glorious celes- 
tial organ, formed of restless planets continually 
spinning and glittering round one dazzling center. 
But, be this beautiful theory true or not true, certain 
it is, that it indicates the sublime thoughtfulness 
of its originator. AVas not he who, in an age in 
which the race was only in the morning of civiliza- 
tion, could contemplate the spheres of the solar 
system, as arranged in such order — was he not 
worthy, in consideration of the elevation and the 
joy of his experience, to have it said of him, as the 
pupils of Pythagoras were wont to say of their 
master, that ^'he was the only mortal whom the 
gods had permitted to hear the harmony of the 
spheres ?" 

We can, at best, but inadequately conceive how 
thrilling to Pythagoras must have been his intellec- 
tual raptures, and how satisfying these must have 
been to him, as rewards for his patient toils. It will, 
however, aid us not a little in forming, more vividly, 
this conception, to recall the manner in which it is 
said he expressed his intense joy, when he had made 
the discovery, in geometry, that the square de- 
scribed on thehypothenuse of a right-angled triangle, 
is equal to the sum of the squares described on the 
two other sides. It is recorded by Plutarch, that 



358 A Man. 

lie offered an ox, and, by other authorities, that he 
offered a whole hecatomb to the gods, as a suitable 
indication of his gratitude to them, for permitting 
him such an experience of exquisite pleasure, such 
a jubilee in his mind ! 

Leaving Pythagoras, we pass to another ancient 
discoverer, the contemplation of whose character 
and triumphs cannot but be equally interesting. 

n. 

ARCHIMEDES. 

What lover of science, can, with indifference, read 
this name ? It is a name which is inseparably con- 
nected with the history of science. By Archimedes, 
of ancient Syracuse, were accomplished scientific 
achievements which changed the civilization of his 
time, and have benefited all succeeding generations. 
He was a discoverer in more than one field of inves- 
tigation. 

He was a discoverer in mathematics. By methods, 
depending on developments of truth made by 
Archimedes, men, in this day, measure curvilinear 
surfaces and solids. What a penetrating mind was 
his, that it was able to perceive unique relations and 
laws, where a thousand other minds saw nothing 
w^orthy of attention ! It was for none but Archi- 
medes to take up the cylinder and the sphere, and, 
by discovering the beautiful proportion existing 
between these magnitudes, when each has a base 
and an altitude equal to the base and the altitude 
of the other, to make them memorials of one man's 
genius, to a generation more than two thousand 



Archimedes. 359 

years distant from his own. The circle was a com- 
mon thing ; but it was for Archimedes, and him 
only, to take up this common thing, and, by dis- 
covering the relation of its diameter to its circum- 
ference, to make it a charming celebrator of his 
own greatness for all subsequent eras. 

But Archimedes was, also, a discoverer 'in practi- 
cal mechanics. He it was, that ascertained the 
principle of the first compound pulley, and the 
principle of the first endless screw. His mind 
abounded with mechanic theories, which he had 
thought out in his solitary hours. The historians 
of the past — Polybius, Livy, Plutarch — each in- 
dulges himself in admiration of the Archimedean 
ingenuity, as displaj^ed in the military machines 
which the immortal discoverer produced, to repel 
the attacks of the Romans during the siege of Syra- 
cuse. In his life of Marcellus, Plutarch says, that 
Archimedes, in order to show his kinsman and 
friend. King Hiero, how beautifully he could move 
a great weight w^ith a small power, first caused one 
of the king's galleys to be drawn on shore without 
any application of machinery. Then, to illustrate 
the advantage gained through his ropes and pulleys, 
he placed himself at a distance from the loaded 
galley, and drew it to him, only moving with his 
hand the end of his machine. Plutarch tells us, 
also, that, in consequence of the engines of Archi- 
- medes, the Romans seemed, in their attack, outside 
of the w^alls of Syracuse, " to fight against the gods." 
''Why do we not leave off contending," exclaimed 
Marcellus, ''with this mathematical Briareus, who, 
sitting on the shore, and acting, as it were, but in 



360 A Man. 

jest, has shamefully baffled our naval assault; and, 
in striking us with such a multitude of bolts at 
once, exceeds even the hundred-handed giants in 
the fable ? " And yet, Plutarch affirms that Archi- 
medes did not think the invention of war-machines 
an object worthy of his serious studies; but only 
reckoned it among the amusements of geometry. 

It is not known, and cannot be know^n, by mortals, 
how much mechanic knowledge Archimedes pos- 
sessed, which it was inconvenient for him to bring 
to light — how many wonderful ideals he could have 
described, which his own circumstances did not 
permit him to imbody in powerful forms- — how 
many fine machines existed in his mind, the wheels 
of which were destined never to move before human 
eyes. That all the laws which he discovered, in 
regard to pulleys, screws, fulcrums, and levers, 
were reduced by him to practical uses, it were ab- 
surd to suppose. ITo living man can tell the num- 
ber of complete demonstrations which had been 
made by him, before he concluded that, if he only 
had a place in which to operate outside of the globe, 
he could move it from its orbit. '' Give me where 
to stand," said he, "and I will move the w^orld." 
And, in these words, he left to the philosophers of 
after generations, a comprehensive hint, in respect 
to the untold amount of mechanic knowledge 
which he carried, in his mind, to the situation in 
which he now dwells. 

But Archimedes was a discoverer in still another 
field of scientific exploration. You have, undoubt- 
edly, read, more than once, of his beautiful disco- 
very in hydrostatics, and of the bliss which it caused 



Archimedes. 361 

Mm to experience. King Hiero had ordered a 
crown to be made of pure gold. The artist, to 
whom the work had been committed, produced a 
crown to which he had, fraudulently, added an 
alloy. The deception might never have been more 
than suspected, had not Archimedes discovered the 
law of specific gravity. This law was discovered 
by him one day while taking a bath. He found 
that a body immersed in a fluid, loses an amount 
of weight, precisely equal to the weight of the 
volume of the fluid which it displaces. In a mo- 
ment, he perceived, that, by applying this principle, 
he could ascertain whether the crown of gold had 
or had not been adulterated, and the exact measure 
of the adulteration, if any should be indicated. 
"When he clearly saw his discovery, he was so filled 
with exultation, that, yielding to the bewildering 
emotions which he felt, he leaped from his bathing- 
tub, and ran, naked, into the streets of Syracuse, 
shouting, " Eureka ! Eureka ! " — I have found it ! I 
have found it ! "Who can describe the jubilee which 
then took place in the mind of that "glorious old 
heathen?" What words will express the Archi- 
medean joy? It should seem that, in the hour of 
his triumph, the very faculties of the philosopher's 
mind had thrown off* their usual restraints, and, 
with a beautiful madness, like so many trophy- 
bearing victors, were telling their rapture. Do you 
think that, if he had been caught up into the "third 
heaven," his soul would have been more happy? 

But it would be unjust to Archimedes, to suppose 
that this instance of exquisite pleasure was other 
than a single one among many of like kind which 
31 



362 A Man. 

occurred in the course of his experience. I am un- 
willing to believe that, when he had discovered the 
relation existing between the cylinder and the 
sphere, his eyes became not radiant with the light 
of a blissful mental illumination, his heart throbbed 
not with the motion of a great transport, and his 
lips expressed not, in some striking manner, the 
rapturous tumult of his mind. After speaking of 
the intellectual energy of Archimedes, the acuteness 
of his genius, and the clearness of his demonstra- 
tions, Plutarch, who seems to have well known how 
sweet and how intense the felicity of such a man must 
be, observes: "We are not, therefore, to reject as 
incredible, what is related of him, that being per- 
petually charmed by a domestic siren — that is, his 
geometry — he neglected his meat and drink, and 
took no care of his person ; that he was often car= 
ried by force to the baths, and, when there, he 
would make mathematical figures in the ashes, and, 
with his finger, draw lines on his body when it was 
anointed ; so much was he transported with intel- 
lectual delight, such an enthusiast was he in science.'' 
In order to immortalize his discovery of the pro- 
portion existing between the cylinder and the sphere, 
Archimedes, it is said, desired his friends to place 
on his tombstone a cylinder with an inscribed 
sphere. Perhaps, while thus ornamenting his monu- 
ment, those friends had some thought of the joy 
which he experienced, in view of his triumph. And 
you will permit me to imagine that, when Cicero, 
about a hundred and forty years after the death of 
Archimedes, while acting as quaestor over Sicily, 
had, accidentally, found this monument in a thicket. 



Archimedes. 363 

by which it had been so long concealed that the 
Syracusans knew not it was in being, the meditative 
orator fixed his eyes on the inscription showing 
that a cylinder and a sphere had once been placed 
on the tomb, and silently thought of the Archime- 
dean joy ! 

Why, like Pythagoras, did Archimedes so ar- 
dently love the seclusion of intellectual activity? 
"Why, when the city of Syracuse had, at last, been 
taken by the Romans, under Marcellus, was he 
found deeply absorbed in study over some geome- 
trical figures which he had drawn in the sand? 
Those superior felicities which are the sure reward 
of the discoverer, furnish the only satisfactory^ 
answer to these interrogatories. ^'Disturb not my 
circle ! " said he, to the Roman soldier, by whom he 
was insolently accosted. Archimedes, not having 
perceived that the Romans were within the walls of 
the city, refused to obey the soldier's order to follow 
him to Marcellus till he should have finished his 
problem. But that problem was destined never to 
be finished. The mathematician was, at once, 
pierced through with the sword; and, before the 
eyes of the brutal assassin, his bright blood gushed 
out, and moistened the unholy ground. ''Disturb 
not my circle!'* Beautiful, and yet melancholy 
saying ! What a happy indication of that inefiable 
tranquillity, which is the unfailing inheritance of 
the philosopher ! What a lasting memorial of the 
inhumanity of a murderous soldier ! The historian 
tells us, that Marcellus was deeply grieved when he 
heard of the fate of Archimedes ; that he turned his 
face from the soldier who pierced him, as from an 



364 A Man. 

impious and execrable person ; and that he sought 
the great discoverer's relations, and bestowed on 
them signal favors. 

We come, now, to the last one in the trio of dis- 
coverers, whom it was our design to consider, 

III. 

NEWTON. 

"Well do you know what first occurs to your mind 
when you hear this name spoken, or when you see 
it on record. It is the theory of universal gravita- 
tion — the grand generalization, that every 'particle of 
matter in the universe^ attracts every other particle of 
matter with a force or 'power directly proportioned to 
the quantity of matter in each^ and decreasing as the 
squares of the distances^ which separate the particles^ 
increase. This is the most remarkable discovery of 
modern times. 

It is pleasing to observe how differently certain 
distinguished names are associated with the objects 
which appear in the expanse of the sky. That of 
Pythagoras suggests the thought of the music of 
the spheres. That of Eepler is inseparably connected 
with the motions of the planets. So long as the 
bodies of the solar system shall continue to move 
according to the three great laws which he disco- 
vered, his name will be as fresh and beautiful as 
those immortal words of his concerning his triumph. 
''Eighteen months ago," said he, ''I saw the first 
ray of light ; three months since, I saw the day ; a 
few days ago, I saw the sun himself, of most admi- 
rable beauty. Nothing can restrain me ; I yield to 



Newton. 365 

the sacred frenzy. I dare ingenuously to confess, 
that I have stolen the golden vessels of the Egyp- 
tians, and will build of them a tabernacle to my God. 
If you pardon me, I rejoice ; if you reproach me, I 
can endure it ; the die is thrown. I write a book 
to be read, whether by the present or future ages, 
it matters not. It can wait for a reader a century, 
if God himself waited six thousand years for an 
observer of his works." The name of Copernicus 
suggests the true center of the solar system. The 
name of Galileo suggests the daily and yearly mo- 
tions of the earth. And Newton's name is suggest- 
ive of the law of universal gravitation. 

" Nature and Nature's works lay hid in night ; 
God said, Let Newton be — and all was light.^^ 

Pope. 

Let US brieflj^ trace the history of New^ton's astro- 
nomical discovery. We will begin at the sixty-fifth 
year of the seventeenth century. 

Newton, at this time, is a student in Trinity Col- 
lege, at Cambridge. Not yet has he reached the age 
of four-and-tw^enty. He has already been, for five 
years, a student in the college. But he has not been 
either an idle or an ordinary student. He has not 
been a student, like Jonathan Swift, who would not 
pursue the line of studies prescribed in the Dublin 
University. Nor has he been a student, like William 
Prynne, who was a bookworm. Newton has studied 
assiduously and widely. He has also gone beyond 
the boundaries of classified knowledge, and has 
made explorations of his own, in quest of new truth. 

In this year of our Lord, sixteen hundred and 
sixty-five, Newton is forced to leave college, for a 
31* 



366 A Man. 

time, and retire into the country. But it will not 
*be imagined that the young Isaac has somehow in- 
curred the displeasure of the college faculty, by in- 
fracting on some wholesome law, and now must 
needs suffer what is called a rustication. Oh, no. 
]!^ewton retires from the institution, on account of a 
plague which has begun to poison with its pestilen- 
tial breath the atmosphere of the student's retreat. 
And should it not be to us the basis of a strong 
feeling of gratitude, that the young philosopher had 
too much prudence to risk the life which he after- 
ward made so valuable to the race, by carelessly 
exposing himself to the plague which, at the time 
mentioned, was hovering near him ? 

]N"ewton goes to AYoolsthorpe — the place of his 
nativity ; the place where he was an infant so small 
and weak, that it seemed impossible for him to live ; 
the place where his father died, leaving him a help- 
less child ; the place where his mother took pains 
to nourish in him the germs of his subsequent great- 
ness ; the place where, at an early age, he made his 
first little attempts at invention, surprising all who 
knew him ; the place near to the school of Grant- 
ham, to which his mother sent him, when he was 
twelve years old, and in which he gave the first in- 
dications of an ardent taste for philosophic studies 
— a taste leading him to construct models of many 
kinds of instruments and machines, to make hour- 
glasses acting by the descent of water, to imitate a 
new species of wind-mill which had been erected in 
the town, to cover the walls of his room with rare 
designs in drawing, and to perform other works 
which caused his fellow-pupils to consider him the 



Newton. 367 

possessor of uncommon powers ; the place where is 
still shown a sun-dial which- he constructed on the 
wall of his mother's house ; the place whence his 
mother once sent him, in company with a trusty 
servant, to the G-rantham market with a load of 
produce, and was afterward surprised to learn that 
the young philosopher had stopped on the way to 
read, having committed the business entirely to the 
servant. 

But how does Newton employ himself in this 
place of domestic quiet ? With special attention he 
applies himself to the study of natural philosophy. 
The theory of universal gravitation had its origin 
in a garden, near an apple-tree. Let us imagine 
Isaac ISTewton walking alone in that garden. He is, 
perhaps, seeking refreshment in the free air, after 
some severe mental exercise within-doors. But it is 
not important to know what has brought him there. 
It is enough to know that he is in the garden, and 
that he is a man who is accustomed to raise great 
questions on small things. "We may, indeed, sup- 
pose, that Isaac N'ewton is passing a short interval 
with nothing special to employ his thoughts. In 
that interval an apple falls to the ground. The 
philosopher notices the simple occurrence, raises 
his question on it, and begins a train of reasoning 
which is destined to end in the discovery of a prin- 
ciple of attraction as common to worlds as to 
apples. 

I deem it not inconsistent with my purpose to 
trace the principal steps that were taken by Newton 
on his way to the generalization Avhich he finally 
reached. 



368 A Man. 

A certain power is exerted by the earth on all 
bodies, either dropped from high points or thrown 
into the air. The stone which is tossed upward 
conies back to the ground. The ball shot from the 
cannon whizzes to the earth in a curve. When the 
stem of the apple is broken, something pulls the 
apple to the earth's surface. Now, why may not 
this power extend even to the moon, as if that were 
a body under the same law, not dropped from a high 
point, but thrown into space ; and why may it not 
suffice to explain the retention of the moon in her 
orbit? Supposing this to be so, then the planets 
should be considered as kept in their orbits by the 
influence of the sun, just as the moon is kept in 
hers by the influence of the earth. From the third 
of Kepler's three laws concerning the planetary 
motions, it may be inferred that the force of solar 
gravity decreases as the square of the distance in- 
creases. The question now rises, whether the earth 
does or does not draw toward her the moon, accord- 
ing to the same law by which the sun draws toward 
him the planets. There are two methods of deter- 
mining the answer to this question. One is to 
calculate the deviation or descent of the moon, in a 
single second of time, from a tangent drawn to her 
orbit. This descent may, in small angles, be consi- 
dered equal to the versed sine of the arc described, 
in that time, by the moon. The other method is to 
ascertain how far the moon should fall toward the 
earth, on the supposition that the earth attracts all 
elevated bodies toward her, by a force decreasing as 
the square of the distance increases. Should the 
two calculations result in like figures, it would be 



Newton. 369 

discovered, that the same law which holds the 
planets in their orbits, holds the moon in hers ; and 
that by the same law the apple is made to fall from 
the tree. 

Ne^vton found one of the results to be greater, by 
a small fraction, than the other. But a difference 
amounting to the fraction, one-sixth, looked large 
to that cautious reasoner. The consequence of the 
discrepancy was, that he laid aside the problem 
which he had so nearly solved ; and, hardly daring 
to hope he should ever succeed in his undertaking, 
he seems to have almost entirely abandoned the 
subject for about seventeen years. There is reason 
to believe that, during all this time, he gave only so 
much attention to the question of gravitation as to 
demonstrate, from one of Hooke's deductions, that 
an attractive force, emanating from a center, and 
acting inversely as the squares of the distances, 
would produce motions exactly resembling those 
of the planets, in regard both to the form of the 
orbit and to the velocity of the body ^t each point. 

Newton's first calculations were made at a time 
when there existed but very imperfect methods of 
measuring the distance from the earth's surface to 
her center. This distance had to enter among his 
figures ; and it is not difficult to perceive, that the 
more accurately it could be ascertained, the more 
certain he would be whether he had or had not 
reasoned correctly. But Picard's new mode of mea- 
suring a degree, has now come into use ; and the 
great philosopher is, once more, inclined to take up 
his problem. It was the last time he was to apply 

Y 



370 A Man. 

to that problem the faculties of his powerful and 
patient mind. 

He begins the calculations which, many j^ears 
before, had intensely engaged his thoughts. As he 
proceeds, he finds that his figures are, in some 
respects, new. He is, vividly, forewarned of the 
result. 

Let your imagination conceive the philosopher, 
working at his task. See how his countenance, 
usually so pale, gradually becomes expressive of 
high excitement ! See how his eyes, usually so mild, 
become, by degrees, illuminated with an unusual 
luster ! See how his thin white hands are trembling, 
as if they were never to stop, every moment render- 
ing him more and more incapable of advancing to 
the solution of his problem ! See how his head 
seems to turn from the work before him, as if some 
strange element had entered its chambers, producing 
confusion and derangement ! Surely, these are event- 
ful moments to Isaac N"ewton. He who has reasoned 
w^ith a vigor and a success, almost incredible — he 
who has gone through mathematical calculations 
which no contemporary would, perhaps, have ven- 
tured to undertake ; even this wonderful man is 
now^ apparently deprived of nearly all his strength, 
both of bod}^ and of mind; and he seems as weak 
as a child. He is unable to finish his problem. He 
has discovered the evident tendency of his numbers 
toward the result which he had, once before, almost 
reached ; and this discovery is overpowering to him. 
In his extraordinary mental and bodily excitement, 
he seems to have only so much self-possession as to 
request one of his friends to finish the calculation, 



Newton. 37 1 

commencing where he has found it necessary to 
stop. He is bewildered and almost prostrated with 
joy. Seeking some secluded spot, he for awhile 
remains apart from all human society, and gives 
scope to his blissful emotions. 

Such w^as the rapturous experience which crowned 
the discovery of the law of universal gravitation. 
The joy which was experienced by Newton, in view 
of the stupendous triumph which he had achieved — 
a triumph, in accomplishing which it is not unrea- 
sonable to suppose, that he had put all the mental 
powder which he could directly command, to the se- 
verest test imaginable, w^as too intense to be easily 
borne by his feeble frame. And, indeed, lest the 
temple of his mental faculties should be rent asunder 
by the effect of his transport, he asked another per- 
son to take his place, and complete his work ! 



372 A Man. 



P A P E E IV. 



THE INVENTOR. 



The fact is on record, that, when Franklin had 
made his discovery, in respect to the nature of the 
electric fluid, and had invented a means of drawing 
the subtile element from the clouds, he formed a 
connection between his own dwelling and the higher 
regions of the air, so that the passing thunder-cloud 
could give its salutation, by causing little bells to 
ring in his hearing. Is it not proper to suppose, 
that, in the moments in which those bells were 
jingling, and were thus reminding him of the 
triumph which he had achieved, Franklin's soul 
was in a state of indescribable pleasure ? 

The incident which I have mentioned is very 
suggestive. It calls to our thoughts the circum- 
stance which led to the invention of the lightning- 
rod ; the inventive genius of Franklin ; the kite and 
the hempen string with which he performed his 
Promethean theft; the fearless promptness with 
which he applied his knuckle to the rude conductor, 
as soon as its fibers began to bristle with electricity; 
and the joy which he then experienced — a joy so 
great as to cause him, as he afterward said, to heave 
a deep sigh, and to feel that he could in that mo- 
ment have willingly died. 



Accident. 



373 



The true process of invention aflbrds three in- 
teresting topics. I will treat these in their natural 
order. 

I. 

ACCIDEXT. 

The inventor proceeds from the simple to the 
complex, from accidents to achievements. Every- 
thing great and useful in the arts may be said to 
have orio:inated in some su2:o:estive occurrence. He 
who made the first compass must have begun to 
make it in consequence of some external circum- 
stance ; for no mind was ever born with the idea of 
a compass in it. The importance of little things is 
apparent in all great histories. Small was the be- 
ginning of the telescope and of the printing-press, 
of the plow and of the reaper. Small was the be- 
ginning of the first handful of gunpowder, and small 
the beginning of the first locomotive. From what 
did the power of steam, as a motive force, take its 
origin ? Xothing more than the rising of the lid 
of a tea-kettle. There might never have been a 
factory for making glass, had not some itinerant 
merchants who were cariTino; niter heated their 
traveling-pots over a few pieces of that substance, 
and observed the result, as those fragments became 
molten in the sand. The discovery of the power 
of powder, when confined and ignited, to propel 
heavy bodies, was made by Berthold Schwartz, a 
monk of the fourteenth century, who, while expe- 
rimenting in alchemy, put some powder into a mor- 
tar ; and, having by accident dropped a spark on it, 
Vv'as surprised to see the pestle fly into the air. 
32 



374 A Man. 

Heylin, in his cosmography, says, that the art of 
steering was discovered by a man of the name of 
Typhis, who took his hints for making both the 
rudder and the helm from seeing a kite guide itself 
by its tail. 

William Lee did not, without a suggestive cir- 
cumstance, begin, in the year 1589, to invent the 
art of frame-work knitting. Mr. Lee, it is said, was 
paying his addresses to a young woman of his own 
neighborhood — a sort of coquette, who affected to 
treat him with negligence, in order, it should seem, 
to ascertain the extent of her power over his affec- 
tions. Whenever Mr. Lee visited her, he had 
the ill luck to find her busily engaged in knitting. 
Indeed, she seemed to think far more of her knit- 
ting-work than of him. The lover, at length, be- 
came disgusted, in view of her indifference, and re- 
solved to discontinue his ill-requited homage. But 
it appears that, while watching her, as she used her 
needles, the idea occurred to him, of inventing a 
knitting-machine. JSTot long afterward, he was as 
much intent on producing the invention as he had 
previously been on winning the girl. And she, 
when it was too late, was full of regret, in view of 
her trifling conduct. I imagine that this is but a 
single instance, among many of like kind, in which 
genius has become piqued at a coquette, and in- 
geniously stolen her art. Let a young man, like 
William Lee, find himself between a capricious 
knitter of stockings and a thought, and you need 
not be surprised if he is soon far more eager to 
embrace the thought than the girl. 



Inventive Genius. 375 

The foregoing instances will suffice to show 
that all inventions have their origin in suggestive 
accidents. But this is not to say that inventions 
are the results of accident. 



n. 

INVENTIVE GENIUS. 

Something better than a good accident was needed 
to give existence to the microscope, the steam- 
engine, and every other valuable instrument or 
machine. Mental activity, quickness of perception, 
an habitual desire to know the true answers to whys 
and wherefores, and a resoluteness which wavers 
not before obstacles — these are necessary to all use- 
ful inventions. It is by these that great things are 
produced from little things. Let us ridicule those 
idle gossips of the surface-world, who can talk of 
the wonderful results of mere accident, not thinking 
that the best opportunities would be utterly worth- 
less if not appropriated by men of inventive genius. 
Why are there no fine tools and powerful machines 
found among savages ? "Why did not the red In- 
dians, who traversed this continent before Columbus 
was born, invent a rifle to take the place of their 
bow" and arrow, and a ship, with white wings, to 
take the place of their oar-propelled canoe ? Why 
did not some laborer in some coal-mine, where there 
was danger from the sudden ignition of combusti- 
ble gas, invent a safety-lamp, before the task was 
undertaken and performed by Sir Humphry Davy? 
These questions are easily answered. Careful and 
persevering thought is essential to invention ; and 



376 A Man. 

nntutored Indians and dull coal-diggers cannot be 
considered careful and persevering thinkers. All 
the honors of invention are due only to genius. 
The inventor is a peculiar man. He has a personal 
history, remarkable in a thousand incidents. He 
was a brighter boy than other boys with whom he 
associated. It was said that he possessed unusual 
powers of mind. Men observed the indications of 
his unique ingenuity; and they remarked, ^'That 
lad is surely a genius!" You cannot name one 
useful invention which was not brought into being 
by some person who, from his earliest days of 
thought, was seen to be unusually quick at con- 
trivance. James Watt was an uncommon boy, else 
he might not have been an uncommon man. One 
day, in his early childhood, he was found bending 
over the hearth-stone, with a piece of colored chalk 
in his hand, drawing lines and circles, by way of 
solving a problem in geometry. His father was so 
kind as to purchase for him a set of cabinet-makers' 
tools ; and, by means of these tools, he constructed 
a small electric machine, having a glass bottle for 
its cylinder. You may not readily see any relation 
between the simple toy, wrought by those little 
fingers, and an invention performing work for the 
nations. But what if the lad, James Watt, had 
been observed to take far more pleasure in playing 
marbles, in killing flies, or in stepping on the tail 
of the cat, than in solving geometric problems, 
or in making a little machine from which electricity 
miorht flash and crackle ? If such had been the 
case, Europe and America might, to-day, have no 



Inventive Genius. 377 

great railroads, on which to ride behind horses of 
iron ! 

It pleases me to dwell on the habits of Watt, 
since he was so complete an instance of inventive 
genius improved and made extensively available 
by practical discipline. When but nineteen years 
old, he was a maker of mathematical and nautical 
instruments. Even at that early age, he had ac- 
quired great keenness of perceptive power and 
great accuracy of mechanic judgment. He had 
formed those two habits so essential to success in 
invention — that of thinking quickly and correctly, 
and that of carrying a sure and patient hand. He 
could soon see every part in a machine, though it 
might be no greater than a hair. He knew the 
importance of heeding the smallest demands of 
science and of art. In his method, there was no 
inclination to coarseness, which could ever cause 
him to fail of success. He was no bungler. His 
fingers were never in his way. He did not sacrifice 
exactness to haste. He was an Englishman. He 
did not become impatient and whip his apj^etite. 
He knew when his mind and when his muscles 
needed either refreshment or repose. Ever did he 
see the end of his undertaking from its beginning ; 
and he would do his work well, how long soever it 
might employ him. 

All these characteristics must needs be apparent 
in him who may reasonably hope to invent some- 
thing for national use. Incomplete are the successes 
of that inventor who is not thoroughly disciplined, 
both in mind and in hand. The smallest things in 
art are generally the most important. N"o mechani- 
32* 



378 A Man. 

cian, inadequately educated, in respect to Lis pro- 
fession, can invent a fine tool or machine. Many 
an over-eager inventor, like many an over-eager 
bird-catcher, performs his short work for nothing, 
or for a poor something. The former may produce 
an unpractical machine ; the latter may fill his hand 
with feathers. Many an item which, to minds 
wanting in mechanic ingenuity, would seem un- 
important, is indispensable to a good microscope or 
to a good spy-glass. Small would be the value of 
the surveyor's instruments, but for the hair-like 
delicateness of the greater number of their parts. 
The watch which you carry, had it not employed 
an eye whose quickest glance could perceive a mul- 
titude of important particulars, and a hand which, 
in its appropriate occupation, was almost incapable 
of a blunder, would have run down, and that is all. 
Genius, in its application to mechanic art, is of 
the highest service, when disciplined, to estimate 
with the greatest readiness and accuracy, the im- 
portance of both the large and the little, of both the 
coarse and the delicate. Fulton was more truly the 
inventor of the steamboat than John Fitch, who 
made a rude one some years before ; for Fitch's 
work was but the accident which gave rise to Ful- 
ton's. Kay did not show Arkwright how to invent 
the spinning-frame. Kay's suggestions were only 
the accidental basis on which Arkwright founded 
his achievement. James Watt was more truly the 
inventor of the steam-engine than l^ewcomen ; for 
I^ewcomen's engine served him only as a good acci- 
dent. Watt knew how to combine small things 
with great things, so as to produce a splendid re- 



The Inventor's Joy. 379 

suit ; Newcomen knew not so well liow to do this, 
l^ewcomen's engine was little more than a steam- 
machine for drawing water out of deep wells. Watt, 
on the contrary, produced a steam-machine, by 
which a new era was introduced — an achievement, 
in consequence of which men, thenceforward, 
deemed it a greater privilege to live on the earth. 
There is but one class of mechanicians wdio invent 
instruments and engines whose power makes the 
pulses of the world beat faster. There is but one 
class of inventors whose works are masterpieces. 
They are men of genius, who are thoroughly disci- 
plined. They are men like James Watt. 

III. 

THE inventor's JOY. 

Philosophy, independent of personal instances, 
plainly teaches us that superior felicities should be 
supposed to be experienced by him who has suc- 
ceeded in a manly attempt at invention. You know 
it is but natural that, when a long period of intense 
application has closed with a brilliant triumph, there 
should then be felt a great rapture, running and 
running through the soul. There is a beautiful law 
prevailing in all true experience of life. It is the 
law by which every series of hard and successful 
efforts, made with the mind steadily fixed on some 
special object of pursuit, is crowned with an exulta- 
tion in which the achiever is insensible to all the 
weariness resulting from his long-continued striv- 
ings. Life is satisfying only to persons of habitual 
endeavor and unconquerable force. It is by a judi- 



380 A Man. 

cious combination of bodily activity with mental 
activity, tbat the quintessence of pleasure is obtained. 
He is the most cheerful of men who applies himself 
to difficult tasks with the most willing heart and 
the most courageous energy. 

Apply this philosophy to inventors, and you will 
see that to them there must be some of the happiest 
holidays and jubilees in the world. 'No person has 
read the entire experience of any one of those men 
who have produced new tools or new machines. 
Many inventions there are which, like the pyramids 
of Egypt, celebrate only the power and the jubila- 
tions of genius, and are dumb in respect to human 
names. "What do we know of him who manufac- 
tured the first loaf of bread ? or of him who in- 
vented the art of making butter ? Some ingenious 
Chinaman first showed a way of producing porce- 
lain ; but where is the man's name ? Some Hebrew 
artist invented the psaltery and enjoyed its first 
music ; but where is the man's name ? What do we 
know of the originator of the art of embalming ? 
or of him who contrived the first instrument for 
keeping time? I will remind you of something 
which we may know in regard to the personality 
that was once concerned in each of these inventions. 
Does not every interesting product of human inge- 
nuity tell us the beautiful story of some soul ani- 
mated with a fine transport ? True it is, that un- 
numbered geniuses that once shone distinctly, 
before men, are now but dim and nameless stars, in 
the Milky Way of history. But he who has been 
useful to the race, may live, in his works, even when 
his name is completely lost. Is there not a halo of 



The Inventor's Joy. 381 

individual light surrounding every contrivance, in- 
strumentj tool, machine, engine ? — surrounding it, 
like the bright garment of a satellite or a planet ? 
How much that beat in the hearts and revolved in 
the minds of the ancients, daily goes before modern 
eyes ! In some parts of the ocean, there s^re bold 
reefs and far-reaching islands, which have resulted 
from the activity of certain small and short-lived 
animals, called corals. Men have examined these 
structures of rock, and have seen the operation in 
progress, by which they were formed. Thus, it has 
been ascertained, that they are composed of the 
hard substance, gathered, assimilated, and then be- 
queathed, by these minute animals, during their 
brief life. They worked well, while they lived; 
and, when they were dead, their works remained as 
their monuments. Does not a forcible analogy exist 
between the inventive minds of the race and these 
small builders of reefs and islands ? Civilization ! 
what is it but the work of busy human corals ? In 
the ages, these have been working, and working, and 
working. See what they have done. They builded, 
first, in Asia ; next, in Upper Africa ; next, in Eu- 
rope; and next, in America. Plows, carriages, the 
manufacturing arts, houses, villages, cities, appli- 
cations of horse-power, of water-power, of wind- 
power, of steam-power, and of lightning-power — 
these are lasting products, bearing the marks of 
skillful fingers which might once have been seen, 
stirring in all ways, to produce something excellent 
and monumental. Who can tell how many men are 
living in two worlds at once — here, where we live ; 
and yonder, where the departed live ? The maker 



382 A Man. 

of the first mariner's compass is thus alive. I cannot 
tell his name, and you cannot. But we may know, 
that wherever this useful invention is borne, whe- 
ther across the waters or across the lands, it suggests 
to men something of a superior mind. And he who 
contrived that instrument, by which men are made 
to feel safe, when they are where the sun rises to 
their eyes, as if it were coming up from the fish- 
haunted depths, and where, at the close of day, they 
seem to see the same radiant ball sinking into the 
ocean, as if its life-giving fires were expiring, never 
to be kindled again — this man gained far more than 
the power to live, after his death, in what his own 
hands had wrought. Ten thousand times ten thou- 
sand were to be the imbodiments of his power, in 
all subsequent years. For, every compass which was 
to be modeled from his compass, whether by some 
man of his own generation, far away toward the 
other side of the world, or by skillful fingers, of the 
first, of the second, of the third, or of the thirtieth 
generation, after his own, that compass was to be a 
celebrator of his genius, his triumph, and his joy. 

The first winnowing-mill must have sung a magi- 
cal song to its inventor. I will answer for it, that, 
ever after the accomplishment of his triumph, when 
this man heard the sound of shaking sieves, he was 
cheerful. And when Peter Hele, in the year fifteen 
hundred and ten, after a long period of careful ap- 
plication, had, at last, completed his watch, I dare 
assert, that, as he held it to his eager ear, he was 
thrilled by its simple ticking. Can I not name a thou- 
sand machines in the world, for each one of which 
there is some soul finding in its intonations a me- 



The Inventor's Joy. 383 

lody more potent than that which the ears of musical 
amateurs used to receive from the lips of Sweden's 
bird-like daughter ? Think how many men can sin- 
cerely say, " I have an old shop here, whose hum is 
sweet to me all day long ! " 

Do w^e not all know something of the charm of 
moving wheels ? Can we not remember how de- 
lighted we used to be, when standing under the 
roof of a saw-mill, or when watching the working 
of a corn-sheller ? Can we not recall the time when, 
in despite of our teacher's strictness, the sound of a 
threshing-machine had power to attract us a long 
way from the school-house of our early discipline ; 
and when we would not, even at the cost of a hun- 
dred whippings, have missed the sight of a train of 
cars, whose shrill whistle and thundering chariot- 
wheels had stirred our ear-drums ? Did you not, 
one day, among those days in which you had so 
great a passion for everything of a mechanic cha- 
racter that would revolve, whittle out a little over- 
shot wheel, put it under the brink of a mimic mill- 
dam, and theu feel inejffably happy, as you saw the 
little artificial water-bird winging round and round,^ 
with symphonious flappings ? 

There are few persons who did not in their early 
days have a love of the hum and the clatter of ma- 
chinery. Every statesman, poet, author, might have 
become a good shopman. It is interesting to think 
how much smaller might, now, be the number of 
the literati, and how much larger the number of the 
mechanicians, had every man of the present genera- 
tion of grown men been furnished, in his boyhood, 
with a chest of shining tools. But a dozen books 



384 A Man. 

are cheaper than a cliest of tools ; and a dozen books 
may make tlie diiference between the taste of a "Watt 
and the taste of a ITewton. Where is the man that 
did notj when a boy, love to linger, honr after hour, 
near some noisy machine ? But the ear of the man 
may not be like the ear of the boy. He who, at six 
or at twelve, was delighted by the music of a fac- 
tory or of a flour-mill, may, at twenty or at his 
prime, regard all wheel-sounds as unpleasantly dis- 
cordant. Too often this is so. Men should restrain 
whatever tendency they may have to become into- 
lerant of the noise of machinery. Let him who 
makes marble-chips keep on familiar terms with 
him who makes iron-chips ; and let there be a neigh- 
borly connection between the work-house of him 
who forges bolts of thought, and the work-house 
of him who manufactures the bones of ships and 
of bridges. A man commits a sad mistake, w^hen 
he climbs the ladder of some superior profession, 
intending always to remain on his lofty level. Lite- 
rary men should be acquainted with the makers of 
threshing-machines, locomotives, and reapers. Thou 
who art so busy, all of the time, in thy paradise of 
letters — thou shouldst descend, at times, and mingle 
with the men of shops. Do not so closely confine 
thyself to thy beautiful noiseless work, that thy 
nerves must needs be pained by those stentorian 
utterances which come from throats of wood, of 
iron, of brass, and of steel, down in the great places 
of mechanic business ! 

I have endeavored to show, that we are taught 
by philosophy, to consider the inventor's experience, 



The Inventor's Joy. 385 

in tlie hour of success, as indescribably blissfuL 
But there is a route to this conclusion, difierent 
from that which passes from cause to effect, from 
natural law to inevitable sequence. Let us converse 
awhile with history. Let us contemplate a few 
instances, gathered from the many which are on 
record, of inventors transported with joy in view of 
their triumphs. 

One such instance presents itself, under the name 
of Thomas Blanchard, the inventor of the lathe for 
turning irregular forms. In his boyhood, this per- 
son had a peculiar fondness for mechanics. When 
at school, he would steal away from study, and 
amuse himself with his favorite tools, the knife and 
the gimlet. At the age of thirteen, he employed 
himself in inventing a machine for paring apples. 
He was determined to succeed. Li all his leisure, 
he applied his mind and hands to the work. Acting 
on but a mere hint, in regard to such a machine, 
he soon had a parer ready for trial. But it proved 
unsuccessful. The apple being fixed, it would re- 
volve, without difiiculty, when he turned the crank 
of his machine ; but, on applying the knife, he found 
that it was not disposed to cut a sufiiciently thin 
paring. Young Blanchard was not, however, dis- 
couraged. He carefully watched the process of 
paring apples by hand. He observed that the thick- 
ness of the shaving is regulated by the thumb of 
the hand with which the blade is moved. The idea 
then occurred to him, of fixing a regulator or gauge 
to the knife of his machine. He is said to have 
learned, here, what he termed his first lesson in 
invention — namely, to imitate nature in cases in 
33 z 



386 A Man. 

which machinery is substituted for manual opera- 
tions. The practical application of this lesson 
enabled him to produce, in a short time, a successful 
parer. The invention excited the attention of the 
whole neighborhood, and the inventor was a favor- 
ite at all the 'Sparing-bees.'' It is related, that he 
used to accomplish more with his machine than 
half a dozen girls could by hand. 

Blanchard's passion for invention constantly in- 
creased. Having gone to reside with an elder 
brother, who was a tack-manufacturer, he, with 
other boys, was employed to assist him in the work. 
The operation w^as very slow and irksome. The 
youth had, as his daily task, a certain quantity of 
tacks to manufacture. He was often disgusted with 
the tediousness of the employment. The number 
of the tacks made was ascertained by Aveighing and 
counting. To perform, more easily and quickly, 
this part of the work, he constructed a counting- 
machine, which has been pronounced a very inge- 
nious contrivance. He then began to think of a 
machine for cutting and heading tacks. His brother 
endeavored to discourage him, telling him that '^ it 
was too small and intricate a process to be performed 
by machinery." But the young inventor continued 
to cherish hopes of success. The machine was 
commenced when he was eighteen years old. He 
was engaged on it during six years. The final 
result of his efforts w^as complete. He secured a 
patent, and disposed of the right for five thousand 
dollars. 

This triumph animated him to employ his invent- 
ive genius in still greater undertakings. He attempted 



The Inventor's Joy. 387 

to construct a lathe for turning the barrels of mus- 
kets. Success crowned his application. He was 
afterward led to undertake the work of inventing a 
machine for turning irregular forms. The incident 
w^hich caused him to make this attempt, is said to 
have occurred wdiile the workmen of the Spring- 
field armory were assembled to witness the operation 
of his machine for turning the cylindrical part of 
the musket. ''Well, John," observed one of the 
men, to his friend, ''he has spoiled your job !" "I 
care not for that," answered John, " so long as I can 
get a better." One of the makers of musket-stocks 
then boastingly remarked, that "Blanchard could 
not spoil his job ; for he could not turn a gun- 
stock." Blanchard replied, "lam not so sure of 
that; but will think of it a while." 

The true conception of the machine first occurred 
to the inventor while he was driving, in a one-horse 
vehicle, through the town of Brimfield, on his way 
from the armory to his home in the county of Wor- 
cester. He was so delighted with the idea, that he 
could not restrain himself. Springing from his seat, 
he shouted aloud, "I have got it! I have got it!" 
It is related, that two persons, overhearing this ex- 
clamation, suddenly started up from the way-side, 
with countenances expressive of wonder. One of 
them observed to his companion, "I guess that man 's 
crazy." 

It is not unreasonable to suppose, that Blanchard 
was, then, more happy than any king or any empe- 
ror has ever been, amid the splendors and the luxu- 
ries of royalty. There had risen in his mind an 
ideal which had caused him to experience an ec- 



388 A Man. 

static intoxication. On that ideal all his thoughts 
were intensely directed. His eyes were introverted. 
He could see nothing but a turning-lathe. He little 
thought that he was driving in a road, beaten by 
the hoofs of horses and by the wheels of wagons. 
He little cared how many men were near him, 
walking, thinking, looking. All things external 
had, for a time, completely lost their power over 
him ; and, in the excitement of his blissful madness, 
he shouted wildly, and sprung wildly from his seat. 
Is it strange that he was considered a lunatic by 
the two men who heard his exclamation ? Had 
Cotton Mather then been living, and had the mani- 
festations of Blanchard been reported to him, what 
wonder if that stern old believer in witchcraft had 
advised to have the singular man hanged as soon as 
it should be possible to secure him ! 

But not less interesting than the instance just 
considered, is that of James Hargreaves, the inventor 
of an ingenious spinning-machine. There is an 
attractive vein of domestic simplicity and genial 
humor, traceable in the history of Hargreaves, as an 
inventor. One who has been reading it, finds him- 
self in a happy mood of reverie, concerning a hearty 
husband and a hearty wife, 

Hargreaves was by trade a weaver. The idea of 
his machine was first suggested to him one evening, 
while he was absent from home, sharing the com- 
pany of a rollicking friend, at a public house. It 
seems that Hargreaves had gone down, with an old 
friend, to the Pack-Horse Inn, for a comfortable 
indulgence in ale and jovialty. Probably, neither 



The Inventor's Joy. 389 

of them took so much ale as to get what Irving calls 
" a whmisical muzzy look." It is, however, not un- 
reasonable to think that they took a sufficient quan- 
tity to make them much more jovial than they would 
have been if they had not taken any. There was a 
girl at the inn — a fresh-looking spinner, of the name 
of Charlotte Marsden. Harry Garland, a lively 
Manchester fellow, was also there ; and it appears 
that some one of the company offered to wager with 
Harry, as the jolly rogue was sitting by the spinner, 
that he could not kiss her. An apparently unim- 
portant consequence of the attempt wdiich Harry 
then made, was that the girl's one-thread spinning 
instrument was upset, so that it lay on the floor, 
w^ith its spindle in a perpendicular and its wheel in 
a horizontal position. The quick eye of the weaver 
glanced at the simple overturned contrivance, and, 
in a moment, he w^as thinking how he might invent 
a labor-saving machine. ''Why," said he, to him- 
self, ''should not many spindles be moved and 
threads be spun by the same wheel and band which 
now spin only one?" This was the conception 
which then rose in the mind of Hargreaves. Do 
you suppose he was inclined to engage further in 
the sport of the occasion ? Had he not begun to 
contemplate a grander triumph than that which 
Harry Garland had in view^ in his attempt to win the 
offered wager ? While Harry was playfully catching 
the maid, James was seriously catching an idea 
which w^as destined to make a change in the world. 
Hargreaves soon suggested that it w^as time for 
him to go home. Some of the company earnestly 
interposed to prevent the accomplishment of his 
33* 



390 A Man. 

resolution : but their interposition was unavailing. 
The enthusiasm of his hilarity had cooled. The 
faculties of his mind were studying the conception 
of a spinning-machine. Had he remained among 
the merry throng, he would, undoubtedly, have been 
lost in abstraction. So, he returned directly to his 
humble home. Did he more than once stumble in 
the way, and fall on his hands ? There is little 
doubt that he did; for he could see nothing but 
the ideal of a spinning-machine. A spinning-ma- 
chine was incessantly spinning, spinning, and spin- 
ning in his mind. 

Reaching his cottage, he takes a stick burnt at 
one end to a coal, and begins to make lines on the 
floor— lines representing parts of a spinning-machine. 
Ifot long afterward, he rises excitedly to his feet. 
He makes a few steps in the room. Then, seating 
himself in a chair, he places his elbows on his knees, 
holds his head between his hands, and, for awhile, 
fixes his eyes steadilj^ on the floor. Soon, he springs 
again to his feet ; and, in answer to some little word 
from his wife, who is lying with a recently-born 
child at her bosom, he assures her, in uttterances 
instinct with joy, that lie has it at last! Then he 
lifts her up with the babe ; 'and, holding her over 
his drawings, explains their meaning, and, while 
she laughs, tells her that she will no longer have to 
toil at her spinning-wheel. He places her in an 
arm-chair, and more fully illustrates his ideal by 
turning her own wheel over, and making it revolve 
horizontally. Taking her again in his strong arms, 
he replaces her, with the child, on the bed, and 
prints a kiss on her lips. ^^ What will you call it ? '' 



The Inventors Joy. 391 

she asks. And the generous and happy Lancashire 
weaver, in the dialect which he had inherited from 
his mother, answ^ered : '^ Call it? "What an we call 
it after thysen, Jenny? They called thee ' Spinning 
Jenny,' afore I had thee, because thou beat every 
lass in Stanehill Moor at the wheel. What if we 
call it ' Spinning Jenny? ' " 

By this name it w^as called; and that cheerful 
man and his cheerful wife lived to hear the hum of 
its spindles in the factories of England. 

I will present one more instance of an inventor, 
transported with joy in the hour of his triumph. It 
is that of Bernard Palissy, a French potter, of the 
first half of the sixteenth century. His principal 
emploj^ment had been that of a painter on glass ; 
and he might never have applied himself to the 
occupation of an '^artist in earth," had he not, one 
day, seen, by chance, a beautiful enameled cup, 
which had been brought from Italy. This cup was 
a specimen of the workmanship of a Florentine 
potter, who had died, carrying with him the secret 
of his success. Palissy thought it not impossible to 
restore the lost art of enameling, by which that 
earthen cup had been made so beautiful. He fore- 
cast, in his mind, the fortune which would repay 
the discoverer. ^'Somebody," said he, to himself, 
"must have found it out, and why should not I 
repeat the discovery ? " The attempt was soon com- 
menced ; and, as he himself affirmed, he began to 
seek for the enamels, as a man gropes in the dark. 

In that attempt, he was successful; but his suc- 
cess was very dear. It cost him sixteen years of 



392 A Man. 

almost unremitting application in a potter's shop, 
of poverty in his family, and of ridicule from the 
world. In this period, his hair became gray, and 
his form bent. He had to hear his neighbors call 
him a madman, a fool, and a villain. Furthermore^ 
he was often besought by his wife and children, to 
return to his old trade. But it is recorded that, in 
the midst of all his misery, he preserved a gay de- 
meanor. He seemed confident that he would, one 
day, be successful. 

To think of a man as steadily persevering in the 
pursuit of his object, for so long a time, and in de- 
spite of circumstances so maddening, is almost 
astounding. See him, toiling by day and toiling by 
night, throughout those lustru.ms of personal hu- 
miliation and domestic decline ! See his wife es- 
stranged, his children earning among strangers the 
bread which is to keep themselves and their parents 
from starving ! "Was there not sufficient to wean 
Palissy from his task ? How Avill you explain his 
resoluteness ? Was he inhumanly stubborn ? AVas 
he insane? I am disposed to linger on this last 
question. 

The believer of history must own, that the best 
triumphs of genius have been achieved by men who 
were once reputed mad. Was not Christopher 
Columbus pronounced crazy? When James Otis 
exerted himself in opposition to the stamp tax, and 
pleaded, as he himself said, " in the agony of his 
heart," the rights of the young American colonies, 
he was decried as a madman. And said Lord 
Mansfield, when he heard the decrial : " What then ? 
One madman often makes many. Massaniello was 



The Inventor's Joy. 393 

mad — nobody doubted it ; yet, for all that, he over- 
turned the government of ISTaples." Bernard Palissy 
and a hundred other inventors, whose names are 
treasured in history, had to toil and succeed, in 
hearing of the vv^ords — enthusiast — fool — madman. 
I read of John Fitch trying to enlist patronage to 
help him build a steamboat. Here he receives ridi- 
cule, and there he receives commiseration. The 
company that had aided him in making his first 
experiment, refused to advance more funds. " This 
they did, after interfering with his views, and at- 
tempting expensive plans of improvement, which 
failed of success ; and being, probably, influenced 
by that unceasing ridicule cast on the project, they, 
one by one, gradually withdrew from the concern." * 
Fitch could not command sufficient means with 
which to continue his experiments. He was, how- 
ever, firm in his conviction, that the Atlantic itself 
would, in time, be crossed by a boat having steam 
for its moving force. On one occasion, he observed 
to some persons, with whom he had been talking 
on his favorite topic: ^'"Well, gentlemen, although 
I shall not live to see the time, you will, when 
steamboats will be preferred to all other means of 
conveyance, and especially for passengers ; and they 
will be particularly useful in the navigation of the 
river Mississippi." When he retired, one individual 
observed : " Poor fellow ! what a pity he is crazy ! " 
Fitch died without accomplishing his object. It 
was his wish, that his friends would bury him on 

^ See '* Lives of Eminent Mechanics/' by Henry Howe. 
Derby & Jackson, New York. 



394 A Man. 

the shore of the Ohio, ''where the song of the boat- 
men would enliven the stillness of his resting-place, 
and the music of the steam-engine soothe his spirit." 
In his journal, were found the sad w^ords: ''The day- 
will come when some more powerful man Avill get 
fame and riches from my invention ; but nobody 
wall believe that poor John Fitch can do anything 
worthy of attention ! " As I peruse Fitch's history, 
I think that every great invention in the world has 
had its madman, and that John Fitch was the mad- 
man of the steamboat. 

There was Edmund Cartwright, another inventor, 
who, at times, seemed insane. He had conceived 
the idea of a new machine, and, while he was medi- 
tating on it, his children used to see him walking to 
and fro, and occasionally throwing his arms from 
side to side. They were often told, that while 
making these movements, he w^as thinking of 
weaving and throwing the shuttle. He sometimes 
forgot his own inventions ; and sometimes needed 
proof that he w^as the author of his own writings. 
On one occasion, a daughter of his repeated, in his 
presence, some lines of a published poem from his 
own pen. Having forgotten that he himself was the 
author of the poem, he exclaimed: "Those are 
beautiful lines, child; where did you meet them ?" 
On another occasion, he was shown the model of 
one of his own machines. He carefully examined 
it; but he had forgotten that it was invented by 
himself. To the great amusement of the one wdio 
was talking with him, he observed that the inventor 
of the machine must have been a man of great 
ingenuity, and that he himself should feel very 



The Inventor's Joy. 395 

proud if he had been its author. Edmund Cart- 
wright was the madman of the power-loom ! 

Let us now return to Palissy, the French potter, 
who spent sixteen years, in almost unremitting ap- 
plication and under painful reproach, before his 
efforts were crowned with a triumph. We left him 
in poverty. We left his children scattered, and his 
wife disaffected. We left him with his body bent, 
and his head prematurely frosted, in consequence 
of his long-continued application and his numerous 
failures. But did we leave him in discouragement ? 
No. He was never disposed to renounce his pur- 
pose. It seemed to him certain, that he would, in 
time, gain the object of his ardent ambition. He 
had not lost his look of cheerfulness. JSTo thing could 
convince him that he was not destined to enjoy a 
glorious realization of success. He persevered, in 
despite of the poverty of his family, in despite of 
the jeers of his neighbors. Was he a madman? 
Yes ; he was the madman of the lost art of manu- 
facturing enameled pottery ! 

Palissy's exertions were, by-and-by, partially suc- 
cessful. His joy, at this time, was, as he afterward 
affirmed, such as made him think himself a new 
creature. But he soon found that he was far from a 
complete triumph; and the tide of his joy ebbed. 
He had, hitherto, used the ovens and the vessels of 
the village-potters, in which to bake the pieces pre- 
pared by himself for trial. But, having caught some 
glimpse of the success which was before him, he re- 
solved to construct a furnace of his own. This task 
being performed, he prepared new vessels of earth, 
and placed them in the oven. He ground his che- 



396 A Man. 

micals. On the baked pottery lie spread the mixture. 
He then heated the furnace, and awaited the result. 

The experiment, like those which had preceded 
it, was fruitless. But he continued hopeful, and 
began to perform another. His oven was, at length, 
ready to be again heated. He raised a flickering 
blaze, and then looked round for wood with which 
to make it fervid and powerful. But his wood was 
gone. He searches, unsuccessfully, for a few sticks, 
about his dilapidated cottage. His eyes alight, by- 
and-by, on the garden-fence ; and soon he is tearing 
it to pieces, and using it as food for his furnace. 
The fence is quickly converted to smoke and ashes; 
and the potter wants more wood. In that moment 
he seems to have set but one value on everything 
near him that would add to his fire — the value of 
wood. If there had been precious treasures before 
him, and they would have contributed to heat his 
furnace, he would, probably, have treated them as 
wood. Wood is necessary to Palissy's experiment; 
and wood he will have. So, he seizes the very fur- 
niture of his rooms, and throws them into the fire. 
The chair, the stool, the table, each must needs aid 
in making more intense the heat which he is striving 
to raise. His wife — of whom it has been said, that, 
while his was a martyrdom of determination, hers 
was a martyrdom of endurance — resists him, in 
vain, with entreaties, with tears, and with a wring- 
ing of her hands. 

But even this experiment was not the last one 
which Palissy was to make, before he could pro- 
nounce his object attained. Annoyed by the scoffs 
of his neighbors, the cries of his children, and the 



The Inventor's Joy. 397 

curtain-lectures of his wife, he prepared a new set 
of trial-pieces for his oven. He managed, through 
the kindness of an inn-keeper, to secure an assistant. 
Six months pass hj. Success is yet far off. The 
employe is discouraged, in respect to the nnder- 
taking ; and desires his pay. Palissy gives him 
some of his own clothes as a remuneration ; and he 
withdraws from the task. 

The potter continues his work alone. He pro- 
duces a new set of trial-pieces. He again purchases 
and grinds his chemicals. The oven receives the 
pottery prepared for it. The fire is kindled. The 
mixture is spread on the baked vessels. It is not 
long before the enamels are liquefied. But there is 
a succession of little explosions within, which is 
ominous to Palissy of another failure. The result 
is, by-and-by, before him. The mortar with which 
he had constructed his furnace, contained small 
fragments of flint ; and, from the influence of the 
fire, these had burst into a thousand particles. With 
these particles, the molten enamel was filled. Had 
not this accident occurred, Palissy might, then, have 
clapped his hands in victorious transport. But one 
thing has been gained. The secret of enameling is 
discovered ; and Palissy looks into the future with 
a peaceful assurance that his toils will have a tri- 
umphant end. 

Time runs on. Palissy succeeds. It may be well, 
at this point, briefly to reconsider the career of this 
persevering inventor. In a work, entitled ^' Lives 
of Eminent Mechanics," I find the following com- 
prehensive account: ^^For some time, he (Palissy) 
had little or nothing to expend on the pursuit which 
34 



398 A Man. 

he had so much at heart ; but at last he happened 
to receive a considerable sum of money for a work 
which he had finished, and this enabled him to com- 
mence his researches. He spent the whole of his 
money, however, without meeting with any success, 
and he was now poorer than ever. Yet it w^as in 
vain that his wife and his friends besought him to 
relinquish what they deemed his chimerical and 
ruinous project. He borrowed more money, with 
which he repeated his experiments ; and, when he 
had no more fuel wherewith to feed his furnaces, he 
cut down his chairs and tables for that purpose. 
Still his success was inconsiderable. He was now 
actually obliged to give a person, who had assisted 
him, part of his clothes by way of remuneration, 
having nothing else left ; and, with his wife and 
children starving before his eyes, and by their ap- 
pearance silently reproaching him as the cause of 
their sufferings, he was at heart miserable enough. 
But he neither despaired nor suffered his friends to 
know what he felt ; preserving, in the midst of all 
his misery, a gay demeanor, and losing no oppor- 
tunity of renewing his pursuit of the object which 
he all the while felt confident he should one day 
accomplish. At last, after sixteen years of perse- 
vering exertion, his efforts were crowned with com- 
plete success, and his fortune was made." 

Let us try to form some conception of the trium- 
phant inventor, in the hour in which his soul was 
filled with the joy of success. We must, then, think 
of his furnace, as having done its work. We must 
think of enameled vessels, equaling, if not surpass- 
ing, in beauty and value, those of Lucca della Rob- 



The Inventor's Joy. 399 

bia-j the buried potter of Florence. Palissy is en- 
raptured. He perhaps sends a ringing shout into 
the air of his subterranean shop, which, j&nding its 
way to the apartments above, vibrates, thrillingly, 
to the ears of his w^ife. She catches the sound, 
hastens into the cellar, and tremulously appears in 
her husband's presence. She finds him, standing 
over the triumph which has cost him so much toil, 
so much ridicule, and so much reproach. He has 
recovered the lost art. His fortune is made. His 
name will soon be honored. As the repentant muti- 
neers bowed at the feet of Columbus, when he had 
discovered America, so Palissy's neighbors w^ill soon 
be ready to bow at his feet, with confessions and 
tears. All France will praise the courageous zeal 
of " the Worker in Earth and Inventor of Rustic 
Figulines." 

Thus, we leave Bernard Palissy, transported by 
a joy which had already made his wan countenance 
rubicund with the flush of a new-begun youth. 



4op A Man. 



PAPER V. 

THE WRITER. 

Many things are indispensable to admirable merit 
and blissful success in the use of the pen. One re- 
quisite, and the first of all, is a careful education, 
including much study and much practice in writing. 
A pure literary taste is the result of innumerable 
disciplinary impressions. Hence, the education 
should be a work of long time. A trait of simpli- 
city must needs be acquired ; for, without simpli- 
city, no style whatever can be good. 

The young writer, if he is ambitious, should ex- 
pect to receive criticism. This, all the great authors 
had, in their early years, to suffer. It were well, 
should the young man timely seek and secure this, 
so that his faults be privately rather than publicly 
corrected. But, however the literary rod may be 
administered to him, he should endure it, as some- 
thing due from mature judgment to young am- 
bition. 

The very sting of criticism is educative. Con- 
demn not the critic, because he condemns your 
faults; but join with him against yourself. When 
Charles Lamb's farce, entitled ^'Mr. H.," was acted 
in the Drury theater, the interest of the audience 
waned more and more toward the conclusion. 
"Elia" felt inexpressible pain in his heart. But he 



The Writer. 401 

took the wisest course, and participated with the 
audience, in hissing and hooting. So, should yoa 
participate with the critic, when he ridicules the 
blemishes of your style. 

You are a young w^riter. Your experience in 
literature is not ripe. Many men, with half your 
excellent vigor, know a hundred times more than 
you do, concerning rhetoric canons and delicacy 
of taste. Hence, do not pout, when one of these 
men calls your style crude. Perhaps it is so. Do 
you ignorantly violate the wholesome rules of gram- 
matic purity, and thus incur the reproach of bar- 
barism, of solecism, or of impropriety? Do you 
misplace your adverbs and adjuncts ? Do you fail 
in clearness- and precision, in unity, in strength, or 
in harmony ? Are your sentences unintelligible, 
either from confusion of thought or from affectation 
of excellence ? Do you employ sonorous language 
which conveys no distinct meaning ? Do your pe- 
riods end with clauses expressing circumstances, 
with mere particles, or with ^'nothings of much 
sound?" Are your figures far-fetched, mixed, 
strained, or undignified? Do many of your sen- 
tences express incomplete propositions ? Are you 
licentious in the use of intensive epithets ? Do you 
employ vulgar idioms ? Does your strength in 
writing lie less in the thought than in the language ? 
Do you use words out of the simple way ? Do your 
productions abound, too extensively, with compound 
words ? Do you write in the swelling mode ? Do 
you personify abstract ideas ? Do you come down 
to disgusting particulars ? Are you liable to the 
charge of sophomorical ? '' Think on these things ! " 
34* 



402 A Man. 

Cicero's and Quintilian's suggestions, in respect * 
to style, claim the attention of him who is ambi- 
tious to succeed as a writer. The former says it is 
not proper always to employ a continued train and 
a sort of regular compass of phrases ; that style 
should be often broken down into smaller members ; 
and that he is truly eloquent who can discourse of 
humble subjects in a plain style, who can treat im- 
portant ones with dignity, and can speak of things 
which are of a middle nature, in a temperate strain. 
Quintilian, speaking of circumstances, says they 
should be inserted wherever the happiest place for 
them can be found ; as, in a structure composed of 
rough stones, there are always places where the most 
irregular and unshapely may find some adjacent one 
to which it can be joined, and some basis on which 
it may rest. Speaking of the structure of periods, 
he says that sentences should always rise and grow. 

Coleridge defines prose to be words in their best 
order ; and poetry to be the best words in their best 
order. 

But, perhaps, no better counsel could be given to 
a young writer, than that which a certain eminent 
editor and divine, now living, once sent in a letter 
to one of his correspondents. This valuable letter 
has, I believe, never before appeared in print. 

^^I cannot doubt," said he, ^'that perseverance in 
effort will crown you with success, provided espe- 
cially it is rightly directed. The difiiculty that lies 
before you is this. Your style is crude. You have 
not properly studied the elementary principles of 
shaping sentences. Allow me to recommend to 
your close study, so old and so elementary a book 



The Writer. 403 

as Blair's Lectures on Rhetoric. From his chapters 
on the structure of sentences, I learned more of the 
art of composition, perhaps, than from any other 
one source. And to my close observance of the 
rules given, more than to any other cause, I attri- 
bute what little success I may have attained as a 
writer. That you have not properly attended to 
these primary principles, is as plain to the eye of a 
critic, as would be the neglect by an ambitious 
young painter of elementary sketching, to the eye 
of a connoisseur. In penmanship, right practice 
improves, but wrong practice depreciates ; and the 
more the worse. Allow me, therefore, to say, that 
it is perfectly indispensable to your success in style 
— first, to study the principles of composition ; then 
to peruse good models with an eye to style; and, 
finally, to reduce the principles thus deduced to 
rigid and careful practice. Take this course, and I 
cannot -but believe that you have the elements of 
success in your nature, as well as an honorable am- 
bition for success in your heart. I fear I may seem 
severe in my judgment; but, follow my suggestions, 
and I think you will ultimately find that my severity 
is kindness." 

But a person will, obviously, not be able to attain 
eminence as a writer, if he is meritorious and suc- 
cessful only in respect to delicacy and correctness 
of taste. There is another and more important 
requisite. 



404 A Man. 



ORIGINALITY. 

Since the days of our early youth, we have not 
liked so well to fish from the little brooks in which 
live only the little fishes. We have preferred to 
sink our baited hooks in the rivers or the lakes 
which abound with the larger and more brawny 
tribes of the Avater. So, years ago, away went our 
fishing-pins ; and, years ago, for a similar reason, 
away went our primers. In one case, we thought 
it folly to catch such little fishes ; in the other, we 
thought it folly to catch such little ideas. Those 
primers had, to us, become worthless, and we wanted 
books. N^ow, we are readers, accustomed to search 
in volumes of science or of literature for ideas which 
are great and Vv^orthy. And it is often that we find 
a book which we have abundant reason to pro- 
nounce too much wanting in invigorating thought. 
We have become able to know, as Mr. Carlyle says, 
that ^' books, like human souls, are actually divided 
into what we may call ^ sheep and goats,' the latter 
put inexorably on the left hand of the judge; and 
tending, every goat of them, at all moments, whither 
we know." It is my right to be a critic ; and it is 
your right to be one. Only let us not belong to 
that order of critics who, in the perusal of a book, 
are, in Dean Swift's simile, ^' like a dog at a feast, 
whose thoughts and stomach are wholly set on what 
the guests fling away, and, consequently, is apt to 
snarl most when there are the fewest bones." 

We can scarcely help demanding from him who 



Originality. 405 

undertakes to write for us, that he produce some- 
thing which shall be fresh and peculiar. Never are 
we indiflerent to compositions which are stamped 
with originality. Even absurd doctrines, even wild 
theories are profitable to read, if they but come well 
into the world. When you take up a new book, 
what, in that book, do you most Avish to find ? You 
precisely know. It is something which no other 
book has given you, or can give you so well. Every 
writer's pen should deserve an energetic adjective 
of its own. There are too many pens which de- 
serve a common adjective, and should be called 
tedious. But he who writes tediously, writes nothing 
which he can prove that nobody else could have 
written. It is never difiicult to compose writings 
which will make men sleep. The tedious author 
composes with incredible facility and ease. I have 
read, that there was once a clergyman, in ITew 
Hampshire, who had become noted for his long 
sermons and indolent habits. ^^Howisit," asked 
a man who had heard him, 'Hhat he writes these 
interminable sermons?" '^"Why," answered the 
person addressed, "\\q probably gets to writing, and 
is too lazy to stop." 

The individual who apologized to his friend for 
writing so much, because he could not spend time 
to write less, only inserted as a postscript what 
many an author might reasonably have had for his 
preface. Books, in this day, are far too speedily 
composed. How rarely is there contained between 
the lids of a volume, thoughts, the expression of 
which was a work of years ? A man is busy so many 
weeks over paper, and three hundred pages or more 



4o6 A Man. 

are the result. It was not so in the old time. Vir- 
gil wrote a great poem ; but he did this with a pen 
that often hesitated long on its track, often erased 
what it had written, and never went far with speed. 
I cannot believe it was with haste that Matthew 
and Mark, Luke and John, composed their Gospel 
narratives. Longevity does not belong to things 
quickly formed. There are fungous plants in lite- 
rature ; and, in the hands of critics, they fall to 
pieces, as toadstools do in the hands of botanists. 
If you were to ascertain all those sentiments which, 
to the greater number of human hearts, are the most 
soothing or the most inspiring, in what books do 
you think you would find them ? "Would you find 
them in such as were written speedily, or such as 
were written in long time ? Eely on it, that, in all 
production, what is gained by swiftness is lost by 
evanescence. Agatharcus prided himself on the 
celerity with which he performed his paintings. 
Zeuxis said: ''If I boast, it shall be of the slowness 
with which I finish mine." You know which of 
these two artists stands the firmer in historj^ It is 
more than probable, that Milton's sonnets were not 
long under his pen. He undoubtedly wrote them 
without great eftbrt. It was, therefore, appropriately 
asked, by Dr. Johnson, when speaking of them in 
comparison with the Paradise Lost, if it should be 
a matter of surprise, that the hand which was able 
to scoop a colossus, of the most perfect symmetry, 
from a rock, should fail in an attempt to form the 
head of Venus out of a cherry-stone. Goldsmith's 
Deserted Village is a sweet poem, which will, pro- 
bably, for many centuries, have admiring readers. 



Originality. 407 

And why? Certainly, not because it is a profound 
poem. But for this reason, it is a lasting work — 
because it is elaborated almost to the perfection of 
simplicity. Goldsmith had it seven years in his 
mind, and was actually employed for two years in 
composing it. 

A hopeful youth, having sent a poetic contribu- 
tion to the editor of one of the periodicals of the 
day, was surprised to find his verses pronounced 
declined. He wrote to ascertain the reason of the 
rejection; and the answer which was given him in 
the Editor's Table was, that, according to his own 
statement, he had composed the poem in ten minutes. 
So, there is a voice whispering to a hundred unfor- 
tunate authors, whose books have passed through 
but one edition, and will never pass through another 
- — YOU WROTE TOO FAST ! Fame, in authorship, is for 
many persons ; but it is for no person by whom it 
will never be earned. There are two classes of 
writers who compose for but a single generation of 
readers, if for so much as that. They are writers 
who are entirely wanting in originality, and writers 
whose originality is depreciated by too great haste 
in composition. 

"Writing involves both a work of discovery and a 
work of invention. It is true, that when the term 
invention is used, an image usually rises in the 
mind, very different from that of a man having a 
pen in his hand, and bending over a sheet of white 
paper. The term rather suggests such places as 
work-shops and experiment-rooms, in which still, 
self-denying men spend months or years, with their 
thoughts, their eyes, and their fingers employed on 



4o8 A Man. 

bits of mysterious machineiy. But allow me to 
aiSrm, that there are other inventors than such aB 
wear leather aprons and handle shop-tools. An in- 
defatigable person, toiling over a scrip-ridden desk 
or table, to weave living thoughts into effective 
sentences, paragraphs, and chapters — embarrassed 
often by difficulties known only to himself — now 
encouraged by his prospect of success, and now pa- 
tiently enduring the consciousness of miscarried 
expectation — at one moment, confident that what 
he has already accomplished, in the prosecution of 
his task, is well done, and is admirable ; and, at 
another moment, turning from, the work before him, 
almost persuaded that he has been deceiving him- 
self in respect to its importance — why is not this 
man an inventor? Guttenberg invented the art of 
printing, and John Bunyan invented the Pilgrim's 
Progress. Archimedes invented his forms of the 
mechanic powers, and Euclid invented his geometric 
demonstrations. Archilochus invented the Iambic 
foot, and Aristotle invented his Ehetoric. Similar 
hopes and fears, similar joys and sorrows have, 
since human history began, been experienced by 
inventors and by authors. Writing is, however, a far 
higher species of invention than any other. Hence, 
its models must needs exhibit finer marks of distinc- 
tion than those exhibited by the productions of the 
shop and of the experiment-room. 

The effective writer is a discoverer ; and, as such, 
he often furnishes to the mechanician the hint, or 
hints, by which he is led to undertake a work of 
invention. Many are the useful implements in art 
which could never have existed, but for the written 



Originality. 409 

pages of illustrious thinkers. Inventions are, gene- 
rally, the results of an application of genius, first 
commenced in consequence of suggestions made by 
the pen. Each requires its suggestor and its con- 
triver, its penman and its shopman. "Who knows 
how many a fine achievement in art has had its 
origin in I^ewton's astronomic writings, or in his 
Lectures on Optics ? It is recorded, that the 
Georgics of Virgil suggested improvements, which, 
in time, entirely changed the agricultural aspects 
of Italy. 'No great treatise was ever published 
which did not set a number of inventive minds at 
work, somewhat as every newly-grown fructiferous 
plant feeds its troop of insects or of birds. It is, of 
course, only originality in books which insures to 
them this practical suggestivity. The writer must 
present something fresh and striking, else he is not 
a discoverer. And here, you will perceive the 
grand distinguishing mark of that class of authors 
whose works are worthy to be purchased, even at a 
high price, and carefully perused, once and again. 
They are originators. They unfold or suggest that 
which was never before so well in the world. On 
old and worn subjects, these writers produce superb 
compositions. They enter neglected territories of 
truth, and open to view ideas and relations embow- 
ered in enchanting scenery. You have undoubtedly 
observed in the imperishable books of the world, 
how and what they originate. Have you not read 
Lord Bacon's ITovum Organum and his Sylva 
Sylvarum ? "What sparks from the hidden fire- 
realms of nature, what gems gathered from the 
shores of the vast Unknown, gleam along the pages 
g5 



41 o A Man. 

of those wonderful books ! Have you not read 
Shakspeare ? From his writings alone may be 
learned the mission of the suggestive pen. What 
myriads of thoughts and delicate relations of thought, 
never expressed till he expressed them, burden the 
pages of that master-composer ! Have you not read 
Thomas Carlyle ? "What squadrons of fresh ideas 
figure in his bold, gnarled sentences ! Have you 
not read our Emerson? What beautiful fringes 
clipped from the garments of Mystery, what invigo- 
rating views of life, of common things, and of des- 
tiny, what new-world glimpses charm and captivate 
the reader, who thoughtfully follows him in his 
eccentric paths of exploration ! 

It would be, I think, an interesting employment 
of the mind, to trace great inventions back to the 
hint or hints which led to the undertaking of them. 
By this inquiry, we would learn how much higher 
in rank are the written works of thinkers, than 
labor-saving machines and all other useful products 
of mechanic ingenuity. But, in the distribution of 
national rewards, it should seem that men of influ- 
ence in government have not suitably regarded this 
palpable preponderance of merit and dignity on the 
side of the writer. Can you not count scores of for- 
tunate inventors of machines, to tens of fortunate 
writers of books ? Consider how many gifted poets, 
worthy to be called human birds of paradise, have 
died too poor to receive an honorable burial ! Vo- 
lumes of mournful truth are couched in that saying 
of our now-departed Prescott : " There is little dan- 
ger of finding too much gold in the bowels of Par- 
nassus ! " " Mrs. Sheridan and myself," said Sheri- 



Originality, 41 1 

dan to a friend, '' were often obliged to keep writing 
for our daily leg or shoulder of mutton ; otherwise 
we should have had no dinner." And the witty 
friend answered, '' Then, I perceive it was a joint 
concern." Bunyan's great Dream, when in manu- 
script, barely escaped everlasting obscurity. 

*' Some said, ' John, print it ; ^ others said, * Not so ; ' 
Some said, ' It might be good ; ' others said, * No.' '^ 

It is well that the famous tinker ever reached the 
conclusion, expressed by him in the words : 

** At last, I thought, ' Since jou are thus divided, 
I print it will ; ' and so the case decided.'^ 

But, as a source of profit to Bunyan, the book was 
long a Dream that was all a dream. Cowper, many 
years after the publication of the work, affirmed, 
that he did not dare to name John Bunyan, in his 
verse, lest he should call forth a sneer. And vet 
that name was the name of him whom Macaulay 
has pronounced the second great creative mind of 
the latter half of the seventeenth century. 

The nations have permitted many of their best 
writers to be borne to the grave in cheap coffins. 
And why this injustice? Why this distinction be- 
tween two orders of geniuses, by which the higher 
is left to be the poorer ? "Why was Arkwright made 
rich by his spinning-frame, and Milton so inade- 
quately rewarded for his Paradise Lost ? Why was 
Watt munificently remunerated by England for his 
inventions, and Thomas Dick so long denied a 
small pension as a national reward for his excellent 



412. A Man. 

writings ? Have not writers, as a class, contributed 
far more than inventors, to make wealthy and strong 
the civilized nations ? 

I have spoken of the importance and the value 
of originality in writing. But this quality of the 
writer may be viewed in many other interesting re- 
lations. He who composes, in a suggestive manner, 
manifests his personality, in the use of his pen, as 
he does in no other mode. It is certain that authors, 
as they visibly are, cannot, in all instances, justly be 
characterized by the same epithets which are appro- 
priately given to their pens. In many a case, there 
is a surprising difference between the character 
which a man usually expresses, when in society, and 
that character of which an impression is received 
from his writings. Mr. "Whipple, I believe, speaks 
of authors as having two natures — a human nature 
and a book nature. This is reasonably said. The 
pen of a suggestive and masterly writer represents 
him as nothing else can represent him. It may ex- 
press an independence of feeling, or a majesty of 
naind, entirely different from that which the writer, 
as a man, is accustomed to exhibit. It ma}^ indicate 
a measure of personal heroism, which is little indi- 
cated by him, in his life as a kinsman, a husband, a 
neighbor, or a citizen. It may teach a sublime de- 
votion to virtue, of which, amid the ever-besetting 
temptations and the ever-fascinating illusions of sin, 
he has never been, and will never be, an actual pat- 
tern. A man may seem ordinary to you, in every 
respect, till you have gone apart from him, and 
viewed him as he exhibits himself in his writings. 



Originality. 41 3 

There lie may, at once and always, seem extraordi- 
nary. Do we not usually deceive ourselves, when 
we infer the physiognomy or the size and the stature 
of an author from the impression made on us by his 
published pages ? You cannot, from the efiect of a 
book of witty sayings, justly conclude that its au- 
thor is a man who has become fat from laughing. 
Cowper's ''Gilpin" is, perhaps, one of the most 
laughable little poems that ever enlivened a dull 
half-hour. But how few of those who have read that 
humorous narrative, know the fact that it was com- 
posed while its author was suffering, extremely, 
from morbid melancholy ! ''I wonder," said he, in 
a letter to Mr. Newton, ''that a sportive thought 
should ever knock at the door of my intellect, and 
still more that it should gain admittance. It is as 
if Harlequin should intrude himself into the gloomy 
chamber where a corpse is deposited in state." 

It would be natural to say, that, wherever Thomas 
Hood, or wherever the author of "Hudibras" was 
present, the power of genial mirth must have been 
felt. But the truth is, that Hood was often very 
sad, and that Butler was usually very taciturn. Dr. 
Franklin, in his imagined talk with Madame Gout, 
is told, that " philosophers are sage in their maxims, 
and fools in their conduct." It is, therefore, not 
unreasonable to conclude, that, if you can properly 
characterize a certain pen as acute, vigorous, hu- 
morous, dignified, or by any other epithet, this is no 
reason for supposing that to him who wields that 
pen, the same epithet is applicable. Hume wrote 
as an infidel ; but it is said that he lived as a high- 
minded and worthy man. Edward Young wrote as 
35* 



414 A Man. 

a saint; but, much of the time, he lived like a sin- 
ner. Of Goldsmith, it was said, by Garrick, 

** He writes like an angel, but talks like poor Poll/' 

Coleridge's pen was prolific of moral lessons, while 
he was the greatest opium-eater in the civilized 
world. Men who had, for years, been familiar with 
the lyric poems of Watts, were greatly surprised 
when they found that he was a little man, only five 
feet in stature; and they exclaimed: ^^What! is 
that the great Dr. Watts ? " Of the poet Thomson, 
there runs the following passage of happy satire, 
from the pen of some bard of our own day : 

" Thomson, who sang about the Seasons, said, 

It is a glorious thing to rise in season ; 
But, then he said it — lying — in his bed 

At ten o'clock A.M. — the very reason 
He wrote so charmingly. The simple fact is, 
His preaching wasn't sanctioned by his practice.'^ 

The foregoing instances exhibit the difference, 
always to be looked for, as existing between men 
considered as authors, and men considered as men. 
I speak not here of all authors ; but only of those 
whose writings are stamped with originality. But 
the difference I have pointed out remains to be ex- 
plained. Why is the personality of the man ever 
so unlike that of the penman ? One thing I will not 
let you name, as an answer. It is hypocrisy, result- 
ing from an unscrupulous ambition for distinction. 
You will soon perceive that you cannot justly assign 
this as the explanation we are seeking. It does not 
cover a sufficient number of instances.. Does it 
account for the composition of the laughable story 



Originality. 41 5 

of Gilpin ? Then Cowper was a hypocrite for not 
writing in a sad vein, because his soul was sad. 
Does it explain how Byron was led to weave the 
ever-varying web of his -'Don Juan," in some of 
the darkest hours of his life ? Then it is hypocrisy 
to write a sarcastic and sensual poem, when the 
heart is gloomy and misanthropic. To pronounce 
an author hypocritical, because he writes in one 
vein, while his real feelings and behavior indicate 
that he should write in another, this were no wiser 
than to accuse I^Tature of hypocrisy for making the 
stars to twinkle, the moon and the planets to shine, 
and the meteors to glare, when the sun has gone 
down. 

The question is, therefore, not yet answered, what 
it is that causes a writer to appear in two distinct 
and perhaps contradictory characters — that which 
he expresses through his body, and that which he 
expresses through his book. "What, then, is the 
true explanation of the apparent inconsistency ? I 
will not promise you satisfaction ; but hear me. 

The question before us finds its answer in the 
possession of genius. Genius is not a characteristic 
faculty, but a characteristic abilitj^ You may not 
call it an unusual natural aptitude ; but you may 
call it an unusual amount of natural force. It 
makes its possessor, in many respects, unlike every 
other person. It does this, by causing him to act, 
in his chosen field of action, with an independence 
and a might essentially his own. But genius is not 
a measure of power or inspiration, which is con- 
stantlj^ felt by the mind. There never was a great 
man who was not, sometimes, less than himself; 



4i6 A Man. 

who did not occasionally forget that he was great, 
and whistle, and be merry, like a bo3^ The mind, 
however powerful may be its faculties, will have 
both its jolly and its moody lapses. Cowper, as we 
have seen, had his hours of morbid melancholy. 
Milton, Dante, Moore, Burns, Pope, Thomson, and 
other poets, I cannot say how many, had theirs. 
"While Edward Young was working on his ^' Night 
Thoughts," he possessed what Coleridge called the 
" o^A^r-worldliness." He then deplored sin, and rea- 
soned well against it. He bewailed the irregularities 
of his son, and of young people generally. He raised 
his voice against the eagerness of men for wealth 
and worldly glory. He wrote as if his heart were 
in heaven. He was then in the highest mood of his 
genius. But genius has its ebb as well as its flow, 
in the mind; and, therefore. Young, in despite of 
his excellent book-character, was, as a society-man, 
fashionable, sycophantic, and unsaintly. It is said, 
that Sir Richard Steele wrote excellently on tem- 
perance — when he was sober ! Solomon was wise ; 
but never so wise as his proverbs. Demosthenes had 
much genius ; but, when it was at its ebb, he showed 
an over-fondness for money. So, when he would 
have held up to shame Harpalus, the fugitive em- 
bezzler of Alexander's treasures, the rogue offered 
him twenty talents' worth of gold, and the great 
orator looked on the bribe and held his tongue. 

I have now the secret — have I not ? — of the differ- 
ence between an author's human nature and his 
book-nature. There is, in every master-composer, 
an old man Adam, and another man Genius. Of 
the two, the higher and braver is Genius. This 



The Essayist. 417 

rules, that crouches. Genius lifts himself, when he 
will, above the body with its brood of infirmities, 
above the beating cerebellum ; and, even while 
pain, depression, and gloom are below, he holds 
himself aloft, and plays the eagle with a pen in his 
talons ! 

n. 

THE ESSAYIST. 

There are various classes of writers. Among 
these, may be mentioned historians, poets, novelists, 
dramatists, scientific writers, and essayists. Let us, 
for a short time, consider the essayist. 

It belongs to this writer to develop and classify, 
in modes of his own, the concealed relations of dif- 
ferent themes of inquiry. He enters the fields of 
visible and invisible truth, and explores them fur- 
ther. "We owe our highest pleasures of reading to 
literary explorers. The scientific v/riter is usually 
more or less confined to certain portions of a single 
region of truth. With his method of determinative 
analysis, he cannot be versatile and entertaining, 
like the essayist. The brilliance of the essay is un- 
suited to science. The essay aims to amuse, while 
it instructs the reader; but the text-book has, as 
its only professed object, the conveyance of instruc- 
tion. Each is a vehicle of knowledge gained by 
observation and thought; but, in the essay, truth 
is classified w^ith more embellishment than it can 
be in the text-book. Furthermore, the results of 
observation and thought, which are presented by 
the essayist, may fitly partake, to a great extent, of 
his own personality, and be expressed in modes 

2b 



41 8 A Man. 

peculiar to himself. Tresliness and originality are 
looked for in the essay, and, in this kind of writing, 
dryness and formality are intolerable. But the 
text-book must needs be the vehicle of truth, stated, 
in the main, with formal perspicuity. There is, 
therefore, but little scope, in scientific writing, for 
the expression of personality. The /, in this case, 
dares not infuse much of itself into the It. The 
essayist seeks to be suggestive ; the scientific writer 
seeks to be definite. The essayist applies, in novel 
modes, the principles of the text-book ; the scientific 
writer ascertains and classifies these principles. 

It may be well, carefully to observe that the es- 
sayist explores various fields of truth, passing out- 
ward from those limits reached by the man of 
science. Your mental philosophy contains but a 
small part of what you are permitted to know, con- 
cerning the nature and the operations of the human 
mind. The classifier of scientific knowledge stops 
on a circumference of limited diameter, and closes 
his eyes to immeasurable territories stretching every 
way beyond him. The student soon finds himself 
in view of realms of truth which it is impossible 
completely to explore. In these realms, there are 
but a few places where he can perceive any relief 
from one interminable vista of relations that have 
never been generalized. And these reliefs are the 
clearings which have been made by that class of 
writers who prepare, on the territories of the un- 
known, fruitful fields of systemized truth. Every 
great essayist has made for us, in some wilderness 
of relations, extending far beyond the outer limits 
of scientific ground, beautiful gardens of classified 



The Essayist. 419 

knowledge, in wliich our minds have been refreshed 
and strengthened. Many of ns do not adequately 
know how much we depend, for all that most 
agreeably amuses us, and for all that best incites 
us in intellectual pursuits, on literary explorers. In 
order more clearly to see the extent to which we 
are thus dependent on the essayist, it may be well 
to glance at the leading characteristics of a few of 
those masters of the pen, who may be regarded as 
representing different styles of composition. 

There is one style which induces a serene mood 
of inspiration. It elevates the tone of thought. 
Though it excites the mind, it does not produce 
weariness. The reaction of the effect, like the effect 
itself, is entirely agreeable. I think the most eminent 
representative of this style is Washington Irving. 
He is what we may justly call an eclectic writer. Mr. 
Newman, the rhetorician, ascribes both simplicity 
and elegance to his style. He carefully chooses his 
thoughts and words, and sets before us only the 
sweetest and most exhilarating. He does not thrill 
you — he pleases you. In his writings, ease is com- 
bined with dignity. They have the charm of per- 
fect gentility, the genial refinement of an intelligent 
traveler, who wins friends to him wherever he goes. 
You, undoubtedly, remember the effect which Ir- 
ving's clear and chaste delineations produced on 
your mind, in the first instance in which you perused 
a book from his pen. Did you not, with an im- 
proved heart, lay aside that attractive volume ? Did 
not this old world look more pleasant to you 
afterward? Irving makes his readers less sordid. 
By moderately raising their thoughts above the 



420 A Man. 

whirl and the din of earthly scrambling, he causes 
them to become more meditative, more amiable, 
more manly. 

Writers like Irving could not easily be spared. 
There are hours in the life of every student and of 
every educated person, in which the mind needs 
literary food that is gently inspiring. The sterner 
productions of the pen will not answer. There is, 
for awhile, no mental relish for science, for philoso- 
phy, or for history. But the fatigue of total inac- 
tivity cannot well be endured. The mind needs that 
employment and that exhilaration which nothing 
can better promote than the writings of accom- 
plished literary explorers, whose pens, like that of 
our lamented Irving, overflow with recreative and 
elevating thoughts. 

But not always do we need to be refreshed and 
inspired in the manner which I have just described. 
If neither weary nor indolent, our intellectual pow- 
ers have a relish for strong food ; and they should 
be provided with such aliment, so that they may be 
invigorated for intense action. The mind soon 
begins to become either despondent or listless 
unless it has work to do. Few men of genius have 
not been obliged to struggle, in many an instance, 
to recover the courageous zeal lost by them in too 
long an interval of relaxation. The inevitable effect 
of prolonged and luxurious leisure is a loss of man- 
liness. Spinoza, it is said, was once offered a piece 
of gold, which he declined, fearing it might too 
much relax his spirit of endeavor. Demosthenes 
shaves one side of his head, and secludes himself in 
a cave on the sea-shore. Henceforward, he no 



The Essayist. 421 

more forgets his duty to himself, and is ready, by- 
and-by, to shake the throne of Philip with words 
from his disciplined month. There come honrs to 
ns all, in which we will not, unless urged from 
without, rouse ourselves to undertake anything that 
is difficult. Hence the need of writings, the object 
of which is the production of excitement and cou- 
rage. Moore, in his life of Byron, relates, that he 
once found the poet reading the history of Agathon, 
one of Wieland's romances. '^I am," he says, '^in- 
clined to think it was his practice, when engaged 
in the composition of any work, to excite his vein 
by the perusal of others on the same subject or plan, 
from which the slightest hint caught by his imagi- 
nation, as he read, w^as sufficient to kindle there 
such a train of thought, as but for that spark had 
never been awakened." 

The class of writers who compose in the style 
adapted to produce the effect which has been men- 
tioned, may be divided into two orders. The style 
of the first order has its chief representative in 
Thomas Carlyle. In his works, we find what seems 
a rush of thought. Over his page, his mind seems 
to have poured out, in a broad torrent, what was 
pressing in it for vent. His words and sentences are 
not merelj" pleasing — they are urging and driving. 
He little cares to be eclectic in expression. He does 
not spend time to find the most euphonious words. 
He apparently fears to delay for the purpose of con- 
veying his thoughts in elegant and musical language, 
lest the inspiration of the moment should be too 
much damped. He writes elliptically. In some 
instances, he is exceedingly verbose ; and, in some 
36 



422 A Man. 

instances, he fails to say enongh. His sentences 
consist too frequently of words that are terrible to 
to utter. I fancy, that should you and I attempt 
to play toss-and-catch with some of his great epi- 
thets and compound nouns, it would very soon 
prove to be a rough sort of sport. 

Carlyle can write better ; but he will not. In the 
sequel of his book on Heroes and Hero-Worship, 
he calls his own words, ^'rude words." Thus, he 
furnishes a hint in respect to that resoluteness with 
which he dashes along with his pen. Stronger 
)iints, of a similar kind, are given in his famous 
essay, entitled '^ Characteristics." Therein, he puts 
forth a theory, denominated by him, '^Unconscious- 
ness of all healthy vital action in Man." He as- 
sumes that 'Hhe healthy understanding is not the 
logical, argumentative, but the intuitive;" for 'Hhe 
end of understanding," says he, ''is not to prove 
and find reasons, but to know and believe." Thus, 
he denies that the logician can be a man of genius. 
The debater, he would say, is too cool and unintui- 
tive for healthy vital action. "The debater," he 
does say, "is to be ranked as the lowest of true 
thinkers." 

Applying his theory to oratory and rhetoric, he 
says, that "the orator persuades and carries all 
with him, he knows not how ; but the rhetorician 
can prove that he ought to have persuaded and 
carried all with him. The one is in a state of 
healthy unconsciousness, as if he had no system ; 
the other, in virtue of regimen and dietetic punc- 
tuality, feels at best that his system is in high order." 
Applying the same singular theory to the moral 



The Essayist. 423 

actions of man, he quotes, as the vehicle of his con- 
ception of intuitiveness, the Scripture passage, ''Let 
not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth.'* 

Whether this theory of Unconsciousness is or is 
not true, it is no part of my present task to deter- 
mine. Let it suffice to say, that in his apparent 
practice of the theory, as if it were true, Carljde has 
wielded a mighty influence since he made his ad- 
vent with the pen. By his earnest, though anoma- 
lous words, how many dependent and fastidious 
souls has he roused from their state of sycophantic 
effeminacy, and made them heroic and true ! 

The style of the other order of the school of 
writers under consideration, has its most striking 
representative in Ralph Waldo Emerson. In the 
writings of this author, is illustrated the effect of a 
consciousness of healthy vital action. And you will 
observe in them an argument against Carlyle's 
theory, so far as it is applied by him to rhetoric. 
Emerson does not, like Carlyle, continually infract 
on the wholesome rules of composition. His 
writings abound with happy sentiments and aphor- 
isms. They have beauty as well as force. Emerson's 
style is, however, entirely his own. You do not find 
its salient peculiarities in the works of any other pow- 
erful author. It is labored. Epigrammatic brevity 
is one of its marks. It exhibits few evidences of 
extraordinary facility in composition. It is the 
compact, studied style of proverbs. It is Solomon- 
ish. Emerson has no crude sentences. On each of 
his books he seems to have toiled as Michael Angelo 
did on a statue. He not only stamps his writings 
with originality of thought, but he also gives them 



424 A Man. 

vigor by his suggestive omissions. He makes you 
think, by leaving you to supply what he does not 
say. ''What spaces," exclaims a magazine writer, 
" between Emerson's sentences ! Each seems to float 
like a solitary summer-cloud in a whole sky of 
silence ! " Emerson writes as if he were certain he 
will be quoted from in future ages. Many a sen- 
tence of his is as short as a streak of lightning. But 
he seems never to compose a sentence with electric 
haste. May I not use a new figure, and say that 
his chapters are trees, and that he prunes every 
paragraph and sentence to the quick? 

Judging from their works, Carlyle is a fast, Emer- 
son a slow writer. In the former, the first mark at 
which the critics aim, is the crude vehicle of the 
thought; in the latter, it is the thought itself. The 
one writes too anomalously ; the other thinks too 
anomalously. Both rouse and thrill you; but the 
greater fault of the one is the crudity of his style, 
while the greater fault of the other is his transcen- 
dentalism. I cannot, however, agree with those 
who discountenance Emerson's transcendentalism, 
to such an extent as not to see and acknowledge the 
value of his genius and originality. Right hand- 
somely does he compensate for his unacceptable 
opinions, in his acceptable strength and the weird 
beauty of his composition. I think it is well that 
we have his writings. Do they not tend to make us 
more earnest of mind ? more apt to inquire after the 
grounds and the causes of things ? more desirous to 
know what are the foundations of our beliefs and 
theories ? more strong to cope with the difficult pro- 
blems connected with man's being and situation? 



The Bliss of the Writer. 425 

more interested in everything that is true and beau- 
tiful ? and less inclined to seek the absurd accom- 
plishments and to follow the foolish fashions of the 
humanity of the surface world ? 

in. 

THE BLISS OF THE WRITER. 

That the successful writer is rewarded with a 
superior order of pleasures, it is unnecessary to 
prove. But the effect of these pleasures on himself 
may not unprofitably be considered. This effect 
includes a complete forgetfulness of sorrow and 
pain, a perfect relief from the weariness resulting 
from toil, a thorough exemption from feverish and 
impatient longings, a peaceful view of life, and an 
encouragement to new and greater mental efforts. 
" Contemplate your subject long," says Buffon ; '4t 
will gradually unfold, till a sort of electric spark 
convulses, for a moment, the brain, and spreads 
down to the very heart a glow of irritation. Then 
come the luxuries of genius, the true hours of pro- 
duction and composition." I have read of one 
Marini, an Italian poet, who was so absorbed, while 
revising his '^Adonis," that one of his limbs was, for 
some time, in contact with fire, before he felt the heat. 
Of Ariosto, another Italian poet, it is recorded that, 
while a young man, his father once severely reproved 
him. But he was entirely innocent, in respect to 
the ofiense forwhich the reproof was given, although, 
strange as it may seem, he made not the least eftbrt 
to exculpate himself to his father. His brother, 
Gabriel, who happened to know his innocence, after- 
36* 



426 A Man. 

ward asked him why he did not explain the case, 
and escape the parental ire. Ariosto beantifuUy an- 
swered, ''Because I was so busily thinking how to 
make the best use of what my father said, in my 
new comedy, in which I have just such a scene of 
an old man scolding a boy, that in the ideal, I forgot 
the real incident." 

Sir Walter Scott well knew the bliss of the writer. 
He seems to have been almost insensible to weari- 
ness of any kind, while engaged on his tasks. The 
sweet reactions of successful efibrt kept him in high 
health. He used to say, that, ''when sick, the best 
way is, if possible, to triumph over disease by setting 
it at defiance, somewhat on the same principle as 
one avoids being stung by boldly grasping a nettle." 
In the quiet of his study, Scott experienced trans- 
ports of which it is probable that the kings and the 
conquerors, the millionaires and the libertines, of 
his day, never dreamed. And, though we cannot 
entirely agree with him in his opinion, yet we will 
believe he was expressing a conviction which the in- 
efiable bliss of many years had wrought in his mind, 
when he wrote the words, '-People may say this or 
that of the pleasure of fame or of profit, as a motive 
of writing, I think the only pleasure is in the actual 
exertion and research ; and I would no more write 
on any other terms, than I would hunt merely to 
dine on hare-soup." 

Readers do not often enough consider the sweet- 
ness of that excitement which must have been ex- 
perienced by their favorite authors, while these were 
toiling at their tasks, in the solitude of thought and 
composition. The exercise of writing is far better 



The Bliss of the Writer. 427 

than opium, as a remedy for discontent or for crab- 
bedness. The activity of the writer removes from 
his mind the causes of melancholy and of petulance, 
somewhat as the stream of water cleanses itself by 
running. Does the mathematician ask what the 
poems of Homer prove ? They prove, I answer, that 
their composer found exquisite pleasure in writing 
them. Happy w^as the blind bard of Scio, while 
producing his Iliad and his Odyssey — producing 
them from the stores of ^'^that intellectual treasury, 
which poverty could not clrain or scorn impair." 
Do not forget, when you peruse Plato and Aristotle, 
Descartes and Spinoza, Shakspeare and blind Mil- 
ton, what days of bliss were spent by these writers, 
in places of seclusion ! Do not forget what happi- 
ness there was for Cervantes and John Bunyan, in 
prison ; and for Dante and Machiavelli, in banish- 
ment ! 

And here is an interesting truth, in respect to the 
felicitous experience of the writer. The effect of 
writing is disciplinary and enriching. The author, 
of all men, is he who bears in his mind the most 
valuable intelligence. Writing is a process of men- 
tal education and adornment. When a great book 
is written, you may at once say, that its author is, 
now, far better prepared to write a greater book 
than he was before, to write that one. "Who can 
tell how much mental and moral gold Butler stored 
in his mind, while he was forming the everlasting 
structure of his Analogy ? Who can tell to what 
an extent Plutarch enriched his intellect, while he 
was busy on his Lives and Parallels of Illustrious 
Greeks and Romans ? And, as all vivid assurances 



428 A Man. 

of successful mental effort are attended by a sweet 
inspiration, it follows that the effective writer expe- 
riences unnumbered thrills of joy, to which the 
reader can have no key in his published pages, but 
which it belongs to his imagination to supply. 

IV. 

POWER ANI) FAME. 

Of all the methods of influencing men's minds 
and hearts, there is, perhaps, none by which a per- 
son may secure more power and higher fame, than 
that of writing. Suitable and adequate investiga- 
tion, in respect to this proposition, will, I think, 
convince the reader that it is not too strongly stated. 
Consider, if you please, the writer, in comparison 
with eminent wielders of influence of other orders. 
Of these, there may be named the tactician, the artist, 
and the orator. 

In respect to the tactician, it is not difiicult to 
see, that his power is held within humiliating limits. 
His great days are days of battle only. If he is no 
more than a tactician, he must needs depend on war 
and carnage for fame. He must be able to ride well 
in a saddle, and must know just when and just where 
to give orders to men to kill men. Does he aspire 
chiefly to military glory ? Then, in order to hasten 
the time when his name shall bear the title of Great, 
he must make some person like Alexander of Ma- 
cedon his exemplar. His heroism must not be moral 
heroism ; for moral heroes seek God's glory, rather 
than their own. He must be devoted to an unscru- 
pulous ambition for martial distinction — an ambi- 



Power and Fame. 429 

tion requiring him to count human life and the 
tenderest domestic ties, as secondary to the advance- 
ment of personal interests — an ambition of that 
kind which Seneca describes as ''a gulf and a bot- 
tomless abyss, where everything is lost that is thrown 
in, and where, though you were to heap province on 
province and kingdom on kingdom, you would never 
"be able to fill up the mighty void.'' The laurels of 
the military conqueror usually smell of powder and 
blood. His renown is not so much the renown of 
power, as it is that of prowess. Tecumseh and 
Black-Hawk, though they had never been educated 
in French or in English, were as lion-hearted as 
were Napoleon and Wellington. 

Again; in respect to the artist, you will observe, 
that, to his empire, also, there are limits which 
make him far less powerful than the writer. It 
belongs to him to influence only the finer suscepti- 
bilities of the mind. His mission is to wean men 
from the sordid pleasures of appetite and of lust, by 
imbodying beautiful ideals in art. But, in his ap- 
propriate field of action, he is able to attract and 
refine the minds of only a few ; for there are but 
few, indeed, over whom the models of music, of 
painting, of sculpture, and of architecture, hold a 
delightful sway. Angelo and Raphael did not carve 
and paint for the many. They Avorked only for 
men of taste ; otherwise, they would, in all their 
years of thought and production, have in vain sought 
hospitality at the doors of human minds. Mozart 
and Beethoven left no music for after-generations 
so powerful as that left by Dante or by Milton. 
What, to the race, is Sir Christopher Wren and his 



430 A Marie 

monumental St. Paul's, to Sliakspeare and Ms 
monumental plays ? Art is noble ; but it is not a 
potent civilizer. It elevates men; but it does not 
reform them. 

Finally; in respect to the orator, it may be said, 
that only on certain occasions of public concern is 
he strong and mighty. He is the people's instructor 
and guide in great emergences. His contact with- 
men is necessarily close; and, while exerting him- 
self, his power is immense. But, considering the 
permanence of the effect which the orator produces, 
it must be admitted, that he is far inferior to the 
writer as a wielder of influence. His power is less 
lasting, while it is more forcible, than the writer's. 
The orator rouses and enchains men by the charms 
of eloquence. He convinces them by logic, set on 
fire with passion. He persuades and moves them 
to action by extemporary utterances, the nice adap- 
tation and the pathetic beauty of which completely 
overpower the strongest prejudice and disarm the 
most contemptuous resistance. But oratory, how 
admirable soever it may be, cannot insure the high- 
est historic fame. It is a means of influencing the 
many, rather than a means of influencing the few. 
Its wonder-working power cannot be reported; but 
its impressions are like those made by the storm on 
the waters of the ocean. When its mighty ^^nouth- 
fuls of spoken wind" no longer move the audience, 
the mid billows of feeling which they have excited, 
must needs sink back to rest, and be followed by a 
great calm. Long ago, the name of Demosthenes 
might have gone to oblivion, had he not toiled, in 
silence, on his speeches before he delivered them, 



Power and Fame. 431 

till, as Pythias said, ^^ all his arguments smelt of his 
lamp." Who knows how many thrilling orators 
have lived and died, leaving no record behind them 
to indicate to posterity how they charmed men in 
their own day ? Little would we know concerning 
wise Ulysses and his oratorio powers, had not the 
Iliad and the Odyssey of Homer given him historic 
renown. And little w^ould we know concerning the 
greatness of Pericles, as an orator, had not Thucy- 
dides committed to writing, in a few brief but beau- 
tiful sketches, some of the utterances of that gifted 
speaker. 

Socrates might have been a pow^erful reformer for 
every age after his own, had he written as many 
wise words as he gave to the air in his long contest 
with the incorrigible sophists. The self-denying, 
courageous old philosopher, with all his wisdom, 
expressed a great error, when he said to Phsedrus, 
in those words attributed to him by his pupil, Plato : 

'' Writing, indeed, Phsedrus, has this inconve- 
nience, and truly resembles painting. Por its pro- 
ductions stand out as if they were alive ; but if you 
ask them any question, they observe a solemn 
silence. And so it is with written discourses ; you 
would think that they spoke as though they pos- 
sessed some wisdom; but if you ask them about 
anything they say, from a desire to understand it, 
they give you only one and the self-same answer. 
And when it is once written, every discourse is 
tossed about everywhere, equally among those who 
understand it, and among those whom it in no wise 
concerns, and it knows not to whom it ought to 
speak and to whom not. And when it is ill-treated 



432 A Man. 

and unjustly reviled, it also needs its father to help 
it; for, of itself, it can neither defend nor help 
itself" 

Socrates, when he spoke these unreasonable 
words, overlooked the fact that great paintings and 
great writings serve to perpetuate, from age to age, 
the power of their authors. He, also, overlooked 
the truth, that it is the duty of every man who is 
far in advance of his own generation, in knowledge 
and wisdom — a duty which he owes to himself, as 
well as to those who are to live after him — to pro- 
duce some noble w^ork which shall carry forward 
the life of his rich mind, so that it may fertilize the 
ages to come. Socrates was, evidently, too fond of 
street-speaking. His one-ideaism had disturbed the 
balance of his mind. He seems to have concluded, 
that his peculiar mode of showing men their igno- 
rance, was the only excellent method of successfully 
influencing them for good. In discarding the ab- 
surd writings of the sophists, he hardly let himself 
see the value of those true writings which are es- 
sential to extensive personal power and to enduring 
personal fame. How much more useful a man would 
he have made himself, both to the Athenians and to 
the men of all succeeding times, if he had retired from 
the street, and spent his days in producing models' 
of composition, which might constitute him a 
teacher and inspirer of men, when his mortal tongue 
should be silent in the grave ! The influence ex- 
erted by Socrates on the race, seems meager, in 
comparison with that exerted by Plato, by Aristotle, 
or by Xenophon. Indeed, may we not reasonably 
inquire, by what means, had not this trio of ancient 



Power and Fame. 433 

writers once lived, we could have known anything 
reliable concerning that master-talker, with his 
flouting nose and uncouth garb, but with habits of 
temperance, and with an extraordinary '^beauty in 
the inner man?" 

Who can tell how many powerful geniuses have 
spoken for only one generation of men, because no 
recording pen immortalized their thoughts and their 
sayings ? A beautiful provision, and one for which 
the race can never be too full of gratitude, was that 
made by the Founder of the Christian religion, for 
perpetuating the influence of his own words, his 
own doctrines, and his own example. Imparting 
something of the afflatus which he himself possessed, 
to a few poor and unlearned Galilean fishermen, he 
transformed them into apostolic penmen. The 
piercing eye of the Master foresaw those ages of 
moral darkness that were to come, in which the in- 
describable eloquence that had made the self-right- 
eous Jews tremble, and had begun to renovate the 
hearts of the idolatrous Gentiles, would not ring in 
the ears of sinful men, and in which there would be 
needed, for the continuance of genuine Christianity, 
the sacred Gospel, with its artless but thrilling nar- 
ratives, and its simple but reformatory teachings ! 



37 2c 



434 A Man. 



P A P E R VL 

THE THREE INSPIRATIONS. 

If you had been a mariner, you could speak of 
having, in many an instance, gazed long and with 
a calm pleasure on the ocean, vdien the rays of the 
unclouded sun were playfully drinking the waters, 
and the wild and boisterous winds, 

"Danger^s grim playmates/' 

seemed asleep in the blue distance. Then, you 
could speak of having, in many an instance, been 
suddenly arrested by a stern voice from the gathered 
clouds, calling up the Titan forces of the tempest. 
Soon afterward, you saw the tops of the high waves 
gleaming afar on the watery expanse. By-and-by, 
you turned again to gaze on- the great deep ; and 
the toiling and foaming billows, the darkness, the 
lightning, and the thunder, showed you that the 
ocean had become fully roused ! 

To this impressive scene, may not the inspiration 
of the gifted mind be, in certain instances, fitly 
likened ? There are times, in which the great soul 
experiences an intense and lofty excitement. It 
seems both to dazzle and to gush with inspiration. 
Its faculties are marvelously active. Its tabernacle, 
the body, though perhaps frail and overstrained, is 



The Three Inspirations. 435 

free from pain. Out of the person's e^-es is darted 
a weird and thriUing light. Mightily to act, in the 
hour of this inspiration, seems as easy as for the 
excited ocean to lash and drive the iron-ribbed ship. 
The deep of the soul is roused. Every smile, frown, 
and gesture of the man is potent ; and the words 
which he speaks, 

*' They seize upon the mind, arrest, and search, 
And shake it ; bow the tall soul, as by wind ; 
Rush over it, as rivers over reeds 
That quaver in the current ; turn us cold, 
4nd pale, and voiceless, leaving in the brain 
A rocking and a ringing ! ^' 

One of the leading marks of this inspiration is its 
naturalness. It at once causes you to feel that it is 
felt. jfSTo man can pass off an inflated for an inspired 
soul. Affected inspiration does not charm men, 
does not persuade them, does not overpower them. 
The mimic orator is betrayed by his unengaged 
features ; and the poet that writes under the influ- 
ence of opium or of intoxicating liquor, produces 
unnatural verse. Sooner than see a pedant or a 
mere dilettante become powerfully eloquent, you 
shall hear your neighbor's brooklet roar like the 
ocean. The great man presents you his credentials, 
and 3^ou cannot but acknowledge them, and give 
him w^elcome to your soul. As his day, so is his 
strength. In the hour of unimportant emergence, 
his voice is sweet and playful. When great interests 
are at stake, his utterances are equally appropriate ; 
and you then know that they are the outspeakings 
of inspired genius, just as when you hear a rolling 
in the clouds, you know it is the thunder ! 



436 A Man. 



I. 

THE POET. 

There are three great moods of human inspiration. 
One of these is that state of exalted abstraction, in 
which the mind of the gifted poet is often absorbed. 
The inspiration of the poet is not incompatible, in 
its intensity, with beauty of manifestation. There 
are persons whose capability of thought and action 
is irresistible. They seem to possess such power, 
that, with but a single strong word, they could, 
perhaps, hush the clamor of rebellion, or take the 
nerve out of an immense army. N'ot of this kind 
is the power of the poet. He partakes more of 
Apollo than of Jupiter. He seems the most angelic 
of men. We require of him, as if by instinct, that 
he choose elevated themes, and that he keep him- 
self unspotted from the world. " So it appeareth,'' 
says Lord Bacon, '^that poetry serveth and confer- 
reth to magnanimity, morality, and delectation; 
and, therefore, it was ever thought to have some 
participation of divineness, because it does raise and 
erect the mind, by submitting the shows of things 
to the desires of the mind ; whereas, reason does 
buckle and bow the mind to the nature of things." 

You read a few pages of ''Hudibras," and, in 
despite of all the words of admiration which that 
work has received, your heart whispers, " This has 
no genuine poetic inspiration." Thomas Carlyle 
has, with a good reason, called poetry, musical 
thought. He conceives that the heart of nature is 
melodious, and that the bard is he who sees so 



The Poet. 437 

deeply into things as to ^^see musically." He con- 
siders Dante and Shakspeare a peculiar Two who 
dwelt apart, ''in a kind of royal solitude; none 
equal, none second to them; in the general feeling 
of the world, being invested with a certain transcend- 
entalism, a glory as of complete perfection." Car- 
lyle is true. The poet proper is an inspired singer, 
a songful explorer of nature. Hence, it may be 
inferred, that there is little genuine poetic inspira- 
tion in satires. When, my literary friend, did you 
most admire Horace ? "Was it when, with his poetic 
pinions dragging in the very dust, he conducted 
you from Rome to Brundusium? or, was it when you 
felt the chastening and elevating influence of some 
one of his Odes or of his Epodes ? If you should 
explore the hearts of the greater number of readers, 
you would find it natural for them to believe, that 
the appropriate mission of the poet is to exalt the 
minds of men by means of beautiful conceptions. 
All impurity is inconsistent with the true object of 
poetic song. Hence, when we found Burns in a 
debauch, and read Alexander Pope's ''Farewell to 
London," and those sarcastic and sensual poems 
which were composed by Byron, the best lines of 
these bards seemed to us, afterward, to savor too 
strongly of the flesh. I doubt not, there are those 
who have, with a diminished fervor, admired " Lalla 
Rookh," since they read of Thomas Moore's liber- 
tinism, and those who have had but little patience 
with Ben Jonson's poetry, since they learned that 
almost every excellent thing he did cost him a cup 
of sack, and that he was so notoriously fond of good 
3T* 



438 A Man. 

Canary, as to win from his contemporaries the title 
of " Canary bird." 

"When rightly understood, the poetic inspiration 
is an exalted enthusiasm, a pure and rapturous 
afSatus. To Homer and Milton, this truth was, 
undoubtedly, obvious ; and, hence, though they 
were blind, they seem to us angelic men. The high- 
soaring Ossian evidently knew the same great truth. 
To him, as to Carlyle, all inmost things seemed me- 
lodious, and poetry to be musical thought. Else 
why, in his w^ritings, did he keep himself so free 
from vitiating contact with the low world? In that 
hour, in which his gorgeous song-words attracted 
and delighted you, his earthliness was all gone from 
your ideal of him — swallowed up in his heavenli- 
ness — and you could scarcely think of him as a 
lonely blind man, pining for a look at the sun. 

The true bard is ever seeking something harmo- 
nious in itself, and therefore worthy of song. On 
themes, human and common, he sings with a sub- 
duing, elevating music. He makes even that which 
is deformed, exhibit beauty. His mission is that of 
a developer of superior harmonies of truth ; his in- 
spiration is that of a rapt singer ; his power is that 
of musical thought. All real poetry is exalting, in 
idea and in sentiment. And it may justly be 
affirmed, that all poetry which is not thus exalting 
is not real poetry. There is no base thing that can 
be well sung ; for no base thing is essentially harmo- 
nious. The subjects of satires are not harmonious. 
The genuine poet does not sing sensualism. Byron's 
inspiration, while composing his '^English Bards 



The Poet. 439 

and Scotch Reviewers," was of an inferior kind. 
In performing the resolution, 

*^ ni publish, right or wrong; 
Fools are my theme, let satire be my song,'' 

he had not the true poetic temper and fervor. Hence, 
it is little strange that he w^as afterward led to speak 
of his satire as '^ a miserable record of misplaced 
anger and indiscriminate acrimony." Certain it is, 
in respect to unhappy Byron, that he. was a genuine 
poet, not always^ but sometimes. 

Says Tennyson : 

'* The poet in a golden clime was born, 
"With golden stars above ; 
Dowered with the hate of hate, the scorn of scorn, 
The love of love/' 

Again he sings : 

*^Vex not thou the poeVs mind, 

With thy shallow wit; 
Vex not thou the poet's mind. 

For thou canst not fathom it. 
Clear and bright it should be ever, 

Flowing like a crystal river; 
Bright as light and clear as wind/' 

Such is the inspiration of the poet. Such is the 
inspired singer. 



440 A Man. 



II. 

THE ORATOR. 

In respect to power, the three inspirations, taken 
together, exhibit a gradation. That of the poet is 
less powerful than that of the orator; and that of 
the orator is less powerful than that of the hero. 
In poetry, thought is sung ; in oratory, thought is 
uttered. The language of poetry is measured ; the 
language of oratory unmeasured. The former is 
refining ; the latter is persuasive and moving. The 
poet is a singer ; the orator is a convincer, concilia- 
tor, inciter. The one exerts more influence on the 
imagination and the finer sensibilities ; the other 
exerts more influence on the reasoning faculty and 
the passions. 

The orator seems to be, in himself, an imbodiment 
of all the forces as well as all the attractions of na- 
ture. When inspired, he often represents the storm, 
disturbing the waters of the ocean. Then, his words 
seem like 

"Supernatural thunders — far, yet near/^ 

Again; he has the refreshing sweetness of a summer 
day. His voice resembles the soft gurgling of streams. 
His face is peaceful, like the landscape which loses 
itself in the azure haze of distance. In his pleasant 
eyes, we catch glimpses of a gentle soul, somewhat 
as we often seem to see the sun mildly beaming be- 
neath the surface of the placid waters. 

But he, at length, suddenly assumes a new atti- 



The Orator. 441 

tude and a new manner, and becomes the represen- 
tative of a totally difterent scene. His voice has a 
stern sound. His countenance is clouded. His eyes 
have lost their mild luster. He now represents 
Winter itself, with its bleakness, its whistling and 
moaning winds, and its storms of chilling snow. 

But, by-and-by, there comes another change; and, 
now, the effect of the man's eloquence is like that 
of the regaling influences of some quiet and beau- 
tiful garden, in which redolent breezes are blowing 
and melodious fountains are playing. 

But, soon, the eye of the orator flashes with a 
lightning-like glance ; and his voice, loud, strong, 
and awful, startles us from our repose. "We gaze 
on the mighty man ; and lo ! he now seems to re- 
present the power which causes cities, mountains, 
and great trees, to stagger and fall, as if some infu- 
riating beverage had made them drunk. He resem- 
bles Vesuvius itself, pouring forth terrific mouthfuls 
of fiery lava. This is enough. We involuntarily 
cover our faces with our hands. Our hearts throb 
wildly. We hardly know where we are. We are be- 
wildered. We are awed. We are filled with terror. 

But, in a short time, the speaker has become calm 
again ; and we are, once more, able to liken his 
voice to the soft tones of singing waters. 

Powerful, indeed, is the great orator ! Wlien 
Benjamin Franklin had heard Whitefield, for the 
first time, it is related that he threw all the copper, 
the silver, and the gold he had in his pocket, into 
the charity-box. When Rowland Hill had, on one 
occasion, become surcharged with the electric influ^ 
ence of the eloquence of Chalmers, it is said that 
he sprang from his seat, and, striking the paling 



442 A Man. 

before him with liis jB.st, cried out, like a wild man, 
''Well done, Chalmers!" Warren Hastings said 
of Burke's speech on the question of his impeach- 
ment, that, '' as he listened to the orator, he felt, for 
more than half an hour, as if he were the most 
culpable being on earth." And we know, that when 
Patrick Henry, the eagle of American eloquence, 
uttered the sublime scream, '' Give me liberty or 
give me death!" the patriots of Young America 
were ready and eager for battle. 

It must be admitted, that a certain amount of 
premeditation is absolutely indispensable to a great 
speech. Patrick Henry was so well prepared, in re- 
spect to the subject of the war, that he was able, in 
any hour, to speak on it eloquently. '' If I were 
asked," said Robert Hall, ''what is the chief requi- 
site for eloquence? I should reply. Preparation ; and 
what is the second? Preparation; and what is the 
third? Preparation.''' 

But preparation is not the only requisite for pow- 
erful oratory. Sufficient and suitable action is also 
required. This was deemed by Demosthenes so 
important, that when asked three times in suc- 
cession, what is the chief requisite for oratory? he, 
in each instance, replied, '^Action!'' And still an- 
other important requisite for eloquence is, that the 
speech delivered should seem to come directly from 
the soul of the speaker. Goethe says : 

" Startle the school-boys with your metaphors, 
And, if such food may suit your appetite. 
Win the vain wonder of applauding children ! 
But never hope to stir the hearts of men, 
And mold the souls of many into one, 
By words which come not native from the heart.^' 



The Orator. 443 

This utterance is in harmony with Webster's well- 
known declaration, that true eloquence cannot be 
brought from far ; that it must exist in the man, in 
the subject, and in the occasion. Sheridan said, 
" he liked to go and hear Rowland Hill, because his 
ideas came red-hot from his heart." The best orators 
have practiced the truth, that the speech of a speaker 
is most effective, when, by his readiness in thought, 
his earnestness of look, his animation of manner, 
and his apparent if not real extemporaneousness of 
expression, it is made to seem like a stream of in- 
spiration coming forth splendidly from the soul. 
Then only is it mighty. Then only does it suffi- 
ciently fulfill the design of oratory, which is to pro- 
duce, at once, a deep impression on men's minds 
and hearts. ^'If a speech reads well," said Fox, 
''it cannot have been a good speech; but if it does 
not read well, it may have been a good speech." 
Garrick once remarked, that he would give a hun- 
dred guineas, if he could say ''0!" like George 
"Whitefield. Of the same speaker, he said, at another 
time, that, ''he could make men weep or tremble, 
by his varied utterances of the word ' Mesopota- 
mia.' " 

The eloquence of the powerful speaker can nei- 
ther be reported nor successfully imitated. It is the 
inspiration of genius, appearing in engaged features, 
appropriate gestures, and persuasive and thrilling 
words. jSTot long does its influence continue ; but 
while it does continue, it overmasters and enchains 
the hearer. The people cannot resist it. It is ever- 
varying. It is charming. It has the music of the 
siren, and the weirdness of the magician. "In one 



444 A Man. 

corner of the gallery," says Mr. March, in his ac- 
count of Webster's reply to Hayne, 'Svas clustered 
a group of Massachusetts men. They had hung, 
from the first, on the words of the speaker, with 
feelings variously but always warmly excited, deep- 
ening in intensity as he proceeded. At first, while 
the orator was going through his exordium, they 
held their breath and hid their faces, mindful of the 
savage attack on him and 'New England, and the 
fearful odds against him, her champion ; as he went 
deeper into his speech, they felt easier ; when he 
turned Hayne's flank on Banquo's ghost, they 
breathed freer and deeper. But now, as he alluded 
to Massachusetts, their feelings were strained to 
their highest tension ; and when the orator, con- 
cluding his encomium on the land of their birth, 
turned, intentionally or otherwise, his burning eye 
full on them — theT/ shed tears like girls !''^ 

The Greeks used to say of Pericles, that, while 
delivering a speech, '^he thundered and lightened." 
When Archidamus, one of the Lacedsemonian kings, 
asked Thucydides which of the two was the better 
wrestler, Pericles or he, Thucydides answered, 
^^ When I throw him, he says he was never down, 
and persuades the very spectators to believe it." 

But not every speaker's eloquence has such power. 
There is often enough an orator who puts his hearers 
to sleep. The number is small, of those who are 
able to experience, on the platform, that feeling 
which makes words mighty. Thersites, prating to 



■^' See *' Webster and his Masterpieces/^ a popular work by 
Rev. B. F. TeJBft, LL.D. 



The Orator. 445 

the Greek army while they ridicule him and wish 
him to be silent, is a representative instance ; and 
Ulysses, taking Thersites' place, and controlling 
every ear, is also a representative instance. ^' When 
the wise Utysses,'* says Homer, ''rose, and stood, 
and looked down, fixing his eyes on the ground, 
and neither moved his scepter backward nor for- 
ward, but held it still, like an awkward person, you 
would say it was some angry or foolish man; but 
when he sent his great voice forth out of his breast, 
and his words fell like the winter snows, not then 
would any mortal contend with Ulysses ; and we, 
beholding, wondered not so much, afterward, at his 
aspect." 

ISTo nation has had many masters of that eloquence 
which is needed in hours of national emergence. 
Lord Byron, who had heard most of the distinguished 
speakers of his day, wrote in his journal — whether 
justly or unjustly, it is difiicult to determine — that 
Q-rattan would have been near to his ideal of an 
orator, but for his harlequin delivery ; that Fox 
struck him as a debater, which, to him, seemed as 
different from an orator, as an improvisatore, or a 
versifier, from a poet ; that Grey was great, but it 
was not oratory ; that Canning was sometimes very 
like an orator ; that Windham he did not admire, 
though all the world did — it seemed sad sophistry ; 
that Whitbread was the Demosthenes of bad taste 
and vulgar vehemence, but strong and English ; 
that Holland was impressive, from sense and sin- 
cerity ; that Lord Lansdowne was good, but still a 
debater only ; that Grenville he would have liked 
vastly, if he had pruned his speeches down to an 
38 



446 A Man. 

hour's delivery ; that Burdett was sweet and silvery 
as Belial himself, and, in his opinion, was the great- 
est favorite in Pandemonium; that he had heard 
Milnes make his second speech, but it made no 
impression ; that he liked Ward, who was studied, 
but keen, and sometimes eloquent ; that he did not 
admire Mr. "Wilberforce's speaking, because it was 
nothing but a flow of words — '' words, words alone ; " 
that Lord Chatham and Burke were the nearest 
approaches to orators in England ; that he did not 
know what Erskine was at the bar, but, in the 
House, he wished him at the bar once more ; that 
Lauderdale was shrill, and Scotch, and acute; that 
he had heard Sheridan only once, and that briefly, 
but he liked his voice, his manner, and his wit, and 
he was the only speaker, among all these, he ever 
wished to hear at greater length ; that Curran was 
the man who struck him most ; that the powers of 
Curran's imagination were exhaustless, and that he 
had heard him speak more poetry than he had ever 
seen written. 

America, it must be conceded, has many speakers 
who honor the platform. Her Everett is polished 
and brilliant. Her Judge Douglas is intense and 
masterly. Her Phillips blends elegance and sim- 
plicity with sententiousnessand strength. Her Breck- 
inridge is logical and vigorous. Her Grough is ver- 
satile and charming. Her Chapin is eloquent. Her 
Henry Ward Beecher is entertaining to all classes. 
But, to know who of these orators would be power- 
ful in the hour of revolutionary exigence, we must 
think of each of them as standing in some situation 
like that of Henry, when he heard around him the 



The Orator. 447 

cry of Treason, or in some place like that of Web- 
ster, when he rose to reply to Hayne. 

That the power of the orator to persuade and 
thrill men is mainly dependent on his genius, or his 
natural capability of passion and delivery, is indi- 
cated by the fact, that he resumes his ordinary and, 
perhaps, playful style of expression, as soon as the 
occasion of his 'inspiration is over. The electrified 
nerves of the glorious man are then entirely relieved 
from the strain to which they have been subjected. 
His face no longer reminds us of the dazzling sun 
or of the gathering storm. His words are familiar. 
He seems scarcelj^ to know that he has the power 
to rouse assembled thousands, to hold them bound 
as by a spell, to make them hate what they loved 
and love what they hated. He may, now, be likened 
to the ocean in a calm. 

In respect to the joy which is experienced by the 
eloquent speaker in the time of his impressive ex- 
citement, permit me to quote the admirable words 
of Tacitus. ^'"When the orator," says he, ''on some 
great occasion, comes with a well-digested speech, 
aware of his matter and animated by his object, his 
breast expands and heaves with emotions unfelt 
before. In his joy, there is a dignity suited to the 
weight and the energy of the composition which he 
has prepared. Does he rise to hazard himself in 
the debate ? He is alarmed for himself; but in that 
very alarm there is a mixture of pleasure, which 
predominates till distress itself becomes delightful. 
The mind exults, in the prompt exercise of its 
powers, and even glories in its rashness. The pro- 
ductions of genius and those of the field have this 



44^ A Man. 

resemblance : many things are sown and brought to 
maturity, with toil and care, yet that which grows 
from the wild vigor of nature has the most grateful 
flavor." 

Such is the inspiration of the orator. Such is the 
inspired speaker. 

III. 

THE HERO. 

Inspiration in song is poetry; in speech, it is 
oratory ; in determination and endurance, it is hero- 
ism. Of the poet, we demand, above all things else, 
musical thought; of the orator, unction of delivery; 
of the hero, persevering courage. The bard sings 
triumphs ; the hero wins them. The orator waits 
for occasions ; the hero makes them. 

Considered generically, the name of hero covers 
all great men. It was Milton's opinion, that he who 
would hope to write a laudable poem, should him- 
self be a true poem, ^'not presuming to sing of high 
praises of heroic men or famous cities, unless he 
have in himself the experience and the practice of 
all that which is praiseworthy." Thomas Carlyle, 
in his six celebrated lectures, speaks of the hero as 
Divinity, as Prophet, as Poet, as Priest, as Man of 
Letters, and as King. ^'I confess," he says, in one 
place, '^that I have no notion of a truly great man 
that could not be all sorts of men." '^ We have," 
he says, in another place, '^repeatedly endeavored 
to explain, that all sorts of heroes are intrinsically 
of the same material ; that, given a great soul, open 
to the divine significance of life, then there is given 
a man fit to speak of this, to sing of this, to fight 



The Hero. 449 

and work for this, in a great, victorious, enduring 
manner; there is given a hero, the outward shape 
of whom will depend on the time and the environ- 
ment he finds himself in." 

The truth of these sentiments of Milton and Car- 
lyle is obvious. But, while we do not deny that 
the genuine poet and the genuine orator partake of 
the heroic inspiration, it is a part of our plan, at 
present, to view the hero as neither a poet nor an 
orator. We do not, however, assume that heroism 
signifies only valor or prowess. There is little 
doubt that shouts of victory, as expressive of joy as 
any that have ever made the air tremble, have been 
uttered in garrets, in shops, and in laboratories. 
Heroes were in this world long before men had in- 
vented war-weapons and systems of martial tactics. 
Battles have been fought on paper, which, in view 
of their results, have, perhaps, been far more im- 
portant than that of Waterloo or that of Solferino. 
^^ Luther's words," said Eichter, ''are half-battles." 
There are men who, though not public actors, are 
heroes. They are heroic thinkers. Their victories 
are gained in solitude. There they grapple with 
difficulties ; and there they succeed and rejoice. 
The faculties of every strong and earnest mind may 
be likened to so many warriors, struggling from 
triumph to triumph. Contending w^ith armies of 
apparent Impossibilities, they overcome these, and 
prove the truth of the poet's affirmation, that 

''^Tis not in things o'er thought to domineer.^' 
And when the contest is over, and the trophies of 
victory are gathered, then these warriors hold a 
jubilee. 

38* 2d 



450 A Man. 

Almost every one of us is sometimes heroically 
inspired. It is, perhaps, safe to say, that there are 
but few persons who, even in respect to that raptu- 
rous inspiration which crowns the persevering cou- 
rage of genius, have not received, in their own ex- 
perience, a multitude of striking hints. How many 
are possessors of respectable fortunes and positions, 
for which they have paid in campaigns of hard 
bivouacs and vigorous fighting ! That bright hour 
— you remember it well — in which your pulses were 
made to bound with new energy ; and in which, as 
if realizing the ideal of Horace expressed in the 

words, 

** Sublimi feriam sidera vertice/' 

in the rapture of some victory, you seemed to strike 
the stars with your uplifted head ! Review your 
past life, and you will see days, here and there, on 
which your heart was like an eagle's ; days on which 
you seemed to yourself to shed lightning from your 
eyes ; days on which, rousing yourself to meet the 
demand of some unusual occasion, you accomplished 
a triumph, and then were ready to shout ^^ Eureka! 
Eureka!'' 

Yes; you know the inspiration of the hero. Did 
you not feel some measure of it in your boyhood, 
when you used to whittle out little victories, which 
appeared in the shape of wheels and of whistles ? 
Did you not feel a greater measure of it, when, 
older by a few years, after a long struggle with the 
" powers of darkness," which resisted your attempts 
to solve some problem in mathematics, you at last 
exerted your mind to the utmost, and performed 
the task? We all were made to experience the joy 



The Hero. 451 

of heroism. He is not a man who is entirely want- 
ing in persevering courage. Such a one temporizes 
and dreams, truckles and recedes too much. He 
steps in the tracks of the man of genius, as this 
man goes forward 

''Through tempests dropping fire;'' 

and, though he often exhibits the form of heroism, 
he never has its power. He utters notes of triumph, 
which, baby-like, he has only learned how to mimic. 
He has no real manliness. He is cowardly — nay, 
to use a line of Ben Jonson's, he is 

" The most unprofitable sign of nothing/' 

That there are other heroes than those of the 
camp, surely no intelligent person will, for a mo- 
ment, doubt. But may it not justly be affirmed, 
that the noblest heroes are not found in the camp ? 
Marco Bozzaris falls in battle, and expires, saying: 
^' To die for liberty is a pleasure, not a pain!" 
Epaminondas draws the reeking javelin from his 
bosom, and, in his last breath, says: ^'I have lived 
long enough; for I die unconquered ! " Leonidas, 
struggling in the pass of Thermopylae, is glorious in 
his inspiration. But these brave men belonged not 
to the highest class of heroes. Greater than their 
courage was that of many of the discoverers, many 
of the inventors, and many of the reformers of past 
time. Greater than their courage was that of So- 
crates, who heroically proved his moral integrity by 
draining the cup of hemlock as serenely as you 
would drain a cup of tea ! Greater than their cou- 
rage was that exhibited by Florence Nightingale, 



452 A Man. 

who, in the hospitals of the neglected sick, and in 
the atmosphere which had been poisoned by the 
breath of men and women suffering from frightful 
wounds and from contagious diseases, was ever fear- 
less and ever beautiful, a heroine and an angel in 
philanthropy ! Far sublimer than the courage of 
any w^arrior that has fought and fallen in the ages, 
was the courage of those Christian heroes who per- 
severed in their devotion to truth, in despite of the 
stocks by which men's ankles were chafed and worn ; 
in despite of the rack on which men's limbs were 
stretched till every bone was drawn out of the socket 
in which it turned; in despite of the dungeon in 
which, by long pei'iods of incarceration, men's eyes 
w^ere made familiar wdth darkness, and their feet 
familiar with the crumbling bones of the dead; and 
in despite of that most excruciating of all conceiva- 
ble modes of torture and destruction — the burning 
stake, in the flames of which the blood of the body 
was made to boil and bubble ! 

But it may be well, carefully to consider some 
particular instance, illustrating the truth, that the 
highest class of heroes are found apart from the 
camp. 

Christopher Columbus discovered America. 

"This," you may be ready to say, "is an old 
statement of history, freshly repeated. There is, 
surely, little reason why you should give promi- 
nence to so dull an afiirmation. This sentence is 
too old to stand alone. The fact which it expresses 
is not sufiiciently important to claim the attention 



The Hero. 453 

of the reader of this busy daj^ You should give us 
soniethiug rare and vitah" 

Indeed, my friend, the statement is a trite one ; 
but, for all that, I can see in it a hero of the sea^ his 
hard and long struggle^ his triumph^ and his transport. 

Had Christopher Columbus never been born, vrhat 
evidence have v^^e for the conclusion, that our vast 
America would not now belong to wild beasts and 
wild Indians ? You may say, that, if this man had 
not made his successful voyage of discovery, some 
other able person would have been honored as the 
discoverer of our continent. But how could you 
prove your assertion true? It is easy to say, that, 
if Martin Luther had never risen and begun the 
Protestant Reformation, some other mighty man 
would have come forth from obscurity and performed 
that work. But where is the proof? 

It is possible, on the supposition that Columbus 
had never lived, that, long before this day, America 
would have been made known to civilized men; but 
I do not admit the certainty of the result. There 
could never have been two Columbuses. Do you 
not know this ? Why, then, should you be unwill- 
ing to believe, that he who, in the year of our Lord 
fourteen hundred and ninety-two, discovered Ame- 
rica, accomplished a work which, had he never 
seen the light, or had he died in his cradle, would, 
probably, not yet be recorded in history ? 

When you think of Columbus, you should think 
of a man who could hardly have lived in this fine 
world without achieving something new and noble. 
He had intellectual eyes which wandered round the 
globe. At an early age, he had, undoubtedly, begun 



454 A Man. 

to aspire to that originality, of which the Maker 
desires every man to possess so much that he may 
deserve to be called eccentric. While he is yet a 
boy, I imagine him, as saying to himself, in places 
of solitary meditation: '^I am an individual differ- 
ing, in many respects, from every other. I am 
neither that person nor that person ; I am Christo- 
pher Columbus — a young man. Is it not for me to 
do something which shall enlarge the domain of 
civilization — something which no one else has 
thought or will ever think to do ? " 

The father of Columbus was a wool-comber, and 
was poor. I have, however, read, that this man 
helped his son to a careful education. You may 
think as you please ; but I am persuaded that the 
boy Christopher was helped to his education, less 
by his father than by himself. 

The young man early formed a passion for the 
sea. At the age of fourteen, he was a navigator in 
the Mediterranean. He was, also, a good swimmer. 
Once, when a vessel of which he was the comman- 
der, had burned nearly to a level w^ith the water, he 
saved his life by swimming ashore. Had he not 
been able, just at that time, to swim well, do you 
think that this Aipierican land would have been dis- 
covered ? 

But, what is better to say, Columbus was a 
thoughtful man, and he was profoundly thoughtful. 
This fact, coupled with that of his indomitable 
courage, explains the superior ability by which he 
became the discoverer of the New World. He was 
precisely the one to stand on the shore of the Medi- 
terranean, or on the deck of a ship, and ask what 



The Hero. 455 

there ought to be on the earth's other side. And 
he was precisely the one to conclude that there was 
land lying not far to the west, and that to this land 
he himself could find a way. I cannot tell you how 
early in his life this great thought first entered his 
mind ; but I can tell you when it first began to re- 
veal itself in heroic action. 

Bartolommeo di Palestrello, whose daughter Co- 
lumbus had married, was participator with Zarco, 
in the discovery of one of the group of the Madeiras. 
On his deathj he had left many useful charts and 
nautical instruments. Columbus preserved these 
with care ; and there is little doubt, that, as often 
as he examined them, the desire grew in him to at- 
tempt the discovery of those lands which, with the 
inner vision, he could behold in the west. For 
years, he had thus traced their shores. They glim- 
mered, in the distance, with the shells which had 
been washed on them, by the tides of unmeasured 
and unsounded waters. He had mused on them, by 
day ; he had dreamed of them, in the silent hour 
of troubled sleep. He felt confident that he would 
be able to discover a broad and fertile country, if 
he could but have ships to guide, as he should 
please, over the trackless ocean. 

Methinks I hear him saying to himself, '' that 
I had now the power to cross that watery waste, be- 
yond which burn 

' The bloody sunset's embers ! ' 

Shall it never be mine to look on that great country, 
whose borders I cannot doubt that the waves of 
more than one ocean have moistened, in all the 



4^6 A Man. 

ages of man ! I am impatient to stand on that 
western soil. I want no better evidence, that it lies 
there, forming a goodly portion of the exposed crust 
of the globe. In my thoughts, how have I wandered 
over that country's fair and warm bosom ! How 
have I drunk of its fountains, and tasted of its fruits, 
and gazed on its gold ! Would that I had wings, 
with which to fly over the deep, and alight on that 
shining shore ! Oh ! must I carry these unrealized 
visions of those beautiful lands with me to the end 
of the present life, knowing that they may still be 
unrealized, even when a thousand years shall have 
passed over me, slumbering with my dead kindred ! '' 

As soon as it was possible, Columbus devoted 
himself to the task of enlisting royal power, in be- 
half of his favorite project. He applied, first, to 
the government of Genoa. His application was 
unavailing. He applied, next, to John H. of Por- 
tugal. This application, like the first, was a failure. 

Had Columbus been a man of only an ordinary 
amount of courage, he would, undoubtedly, after 
these humiliating disappointments, have forsaken 
his project. He would have retired from the cold 
presence of royalty, and, perhaps, have turned to 
his former occupation, with the sad soliloquy: '^I 
will beg no longer for an outfit, with which to dis- 
cover the country of my dreams. Let the old globe 
hug to her ribs those lands of the west. As for me, 
I am going again to navigate ships in the Mediter- 
ranean." 

But Columbus was not a common man. He did 
not despair, because he had twice failed. He was 
unwilling to remain in obscurity, while a vast coun- 



The Hero. 457 

try was lying, undiscovered, within the reach of 
civilized men. 

He leaves Genoa. He leaves John H. But he 
does not leave his project. He goes to Spain. 
Seeking a favorable opportunity, he lays before 
Eerdinand and Isabella his conception and his 
scheme. He indulges a hope that they will furnish 
him the patronage which he needs. But he is pre- 
pared for disappointment. He knows that all great 
successes must needs cost unrecorded frustrations. 

The King and the Queen of Spain regard his 
project as entirely visionary. They tell him so. 
They ridicule his zeal. 

He has little prospect of success. He does not, 
however, renounce his purpose. He hopefully looks 
forward to a brighter day. 

Eight years were spent by Columbus in anxious 
eflbrts to produce, in the minds of Ferdinand and 
Isabella, a change favorable to his great enter- 
prise. He finally succeeded. How, then, were both 
his soul and his body rejuvenated ! How little cared 
he for the painful experience of the eighteen years 
which he had already consumed in prosecuting his 
undertaking ! 

Not, however, by any sympathy or efibrt of the 
haughty Ferdinand, was the way to success opened 
to Columbus. That King steadily and resolutely 
withstood the zeal of the heroic navigator. Let us 
not forget the fact, that, in consequence of a wo- 
man's magnanimity, there were given to Columbus 
the three vessels manned with one hundred and 
twenty men, by means of which he discovered 
America. And, so long as this world shall continue 
39 



458 A Man. 

to roll, maj" the greatness of the mind of Queen 
Isabella be remembered with cordial expressions in 
honor of the gentler portion of the race ! 

Think, now, of Columbus, as setting out from the 
port of Palos, at the head of a fleet, on the third 
day of August, fourteen hundred and ninety-two. 
It is morning. He expects to sail over waters which 
have never been explored. He may not again be 
permitted to stand on the soil of Spain. He has, 
perhaps, beheld, for the last time, the hills and the 
valleys of Genoa ; and, for the last time, looked on 
the home of his childhood. But, for some reason, 
reflections like these do not seem to depress the 
heart of Columbus, in the hours of this golden 
morning. Many are the dangers which he is to 
encounter, and many the difficulties which are to 
embarrass him, before he can gain his object. Pos- 
sibly he will entirely fail. But he is full of hope. 
His ambition precludes gloomy thoughts, and makes 
him buoyant. 

Let him sail on. Let him still hope for success. 
Let him be as cheerful as he can. 

Twenty-one days pass by. The ships are sailing 
on untried waters. Not yet have the men seen signs 
of land. To persons unused to such voyages, it is 
hard to be so long separated fi^om familiar harbors 
and well-known shores. The crew of each vessel 
begin to lose their eagerness to proceed. They tire 
of toiling, gazing, sleeping, musing, and longing, 
in those vehicles which are bearing them further 
and further from the scenes of their nativity. They 
become impatient, troublesome, obstinate. First, 
they accuse themselves of folly, for embarking in so 



The Hero. 459 

uncertain an enterprise. Then, they speak dispa- 
ragingly of their far-off Queen, because she had 
helped forward the visionary undertaking. Last 
of all, they talk of their commander as a rash ad- 
venturer, who should be forced to give up his pur- 
pose and return with them to Spain. Finding 
Columbus fearless and resolute, they propose to 
throw him overboard I But their secret design is 
soon discovered \ij the great Genoese ; and he pre- 
pares to break up their plot. In those moments of 
peril, he exerts something of his latent personal 
force, and the mutinous movements and whisper- 
ings are discontinued. 

Not long afterward, there occurred a phenome- 
non which surprised Columbus himself, and filled 
the minds of his men with consternation. The 
needle, on which they depended for a knowledge of 
their position, suddenly deviated a whole degree. 
But they soon observed what they supposed to be 
symptoms of land. Grass was visible on the waves, 
birds were visible in the air, and the sea was covered 
with weeds. 

They sail on ; but no coast makes its appearance. 
The fleet has toiled through the floating island of 
weeds. Once more, the men are in sight of nothing 
beyond them but water and sky. They again show 
discontent, and again meditate violence. 

Columbus, it should seem, is now tried to the ut- 
most. The very officers of the vessels have become 
mad mutineers. A vigorous rally is made on deck, 
for the purpose of compelling the commander to turn 
the ships about and guide them home. 

Peremptory resistance, on the part of Columbus, 



460 A Man. 

would, at this time, evidently have been absurd. 
His manner must now be mild and persuasive. De- 
termination itself must appear to give way. The 
object of ambition may not be renounced; but the 
means of gaining that object must be more tempe- 
rate and gentle. This is the hour in which our hero 
of the sea must begin to be " as wise as a serpent 
and as harmless as a dove.'' In such an emergence, 
a great patience is heroism ; and partial submission 
is necessaiy to complete success. 

Columbus was not wanting in that philosophic 
moderation which the crisis demanded. Pie knew 
what to do. Confident that land was not far oflT, 
he said: ''Give me but three days more, and, if no 
land appears, we will return." He then promised 
to him who should first discover land a suitable 
reward. That reward was destined to be deserved 
only by himself. 

The ships sailed on till new circumstances began 
to surround them. Everything appeared propitious. 
A plank hewn by an axe, and a stick carved by 
some other cutting instrument, were taken from 
the surface of the water. A bough of hawthorn, in 
blossom, floated by the vessels. They beheld, also, 
a branch, containing a bird's nest full of eggs. At 
the close of day, the clouds presented a different 
aspect. The air was softer. The night- winds indi- 
cated proximity to some coast. Furthermore, the 
sea had been sounded. 

These favorable signs did not prove illusory. In 
the night of the eleventh of October, Columbus 
himself, the first of all, pointed to a light on shore. 
He called the attention of Pedro Guttierez, and 



The Hero. 461 

Pedro called tlie attention of another officer ; and, 
together, this trio of mariners watched the little 
light, sending out its feeble rays, on the border of 
a new country. 

Dawn does not delay. The twelfth day of Octo- 
ber makes its revelation of beauty and grandeur. 
What a vista to those ocean-wearied sailors ! The 
shores of a strange territory are visible. Anxiety, 
doubt, discontent, dullness, languor — these all are, 
in a moment, gone ; and, on the air, rings the wild 
cry of ''Land! land!" 

They approach the inviting coast. They find a 
safe place at which to disembark. They set their 
feet on the soil of the strange land. The natives 
of that land soon gather round them in mute 
astonishment. Those men of the vessels who had 
been foremost in the mutiny now throw themselves 
at the feet of their triumphant commander ; and, 
with confessions and tears, beg his forgiveness for 
their distrust and disobedience, during the voyage. 

History tells us, that, on landing, Columbus fell 
on his knees, and kissed the earth, returning thanks 
to God ! I believe this. How could his joy, in that 
moment, have had other than the strongest kind of 
expression ? The object of his ambition was reached. 
For more than eighteen years he had pursued it 
wdth unremitting devotion. On his eyes, which had 
longed to find relief from the wearisome sameness 
of the ocean, had burst, at last, the real land of his 
early visions. Beholding, as he did, the very 
scenery of that land ; inhaling its salubrious atmo- 
sphere ; knowing that its genial skies were bending 
over him ; standing, perhaps, in hearing of many 
39* 



462 A Man. 

streams, the voices of which seemed to utter a glad 
welcome to their civilized visitor, how could he 
have refrained from throwing himself on the green 
ground and kissing it with rapture ? 

Thus, we have attended our hero of the sea, till 
we have observed the coronation of his persevering 
courage. We have contemplated him in his youth 
and in his early manhood. "We have traced him in 
his endeavors to enlist royal influence in behalf of 
his project. We have been with him over the ocean ; 
and have seen how great, at times, was his peri], 
in consequence of men who had become desperately 
mutinous. We have accompanied him to the bor- 
ders of the New World, and have beheld his joy as 
he landed. This is enough. Do you not see, now, 
the deeper meaning of those old words, '' Christo- 
pher Columbus discovered America?" 

Let us leave the exulting hero in his transport. 
Ineffable, Columbus, is the sweetness of thy bliss ! 
But surely, thou deservest this reward! Quaff, 
therefore, thy precious cup ! May it rejuvenate thee 
as if it were the very elixir of immortal youth ! May 
it fill \hj soul with a satisfaction which, in despite 
of the unwelcome trials thou art destined to expe- 
rience, will make pleasant all thy future years ! We 
leave thee, thou hero of the sea, hissing the earthy 
and returning thanks to God ! 

Such is the inspiration of the hero. Such is the 
inspired achiever. 



THE END. 



c 



Jan 28 1861. 



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